Road deaths cost the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries $7.5 billion or 1.5 percent of their gross national product every year, an expert said, cited by the Gulf News on Monday.
“The GCC has only two percent of the vehicles in the world but the death rate due to road accidents is about 6 percent of the around one million people killed every year in the road accidents worldwide,” said Allan Quimby, a senior consultant of UK-based Transport Research Laboratory.
"These figures are startling especially in view of the relatively small population in the GCC countries. In fact these accidents could be prevented and precious lives could be saved especially thinking of the number of pedestrian accidents and those involved have been mainly children," she added.
Addressing a four-day conference in Manama on "Road Safety, Education, Promotion and Publicity" Quimby said the statistics so far available show that the Gulf region has one of the highest road accident and fatality rates in the world – Albawaba.com
