5 students injured in multi-vehicle crash

Five female students sustained minor injuries in a collision between seven vehicles and a bus carrying students, after Al Maqta Bridge, inwardly, at 9.30am on Wednesday morning.

The injured students were hospitalised and later discharged after receiving necessary treatment.

Lieutenant Colonel Jaber Al Mansoori, Head of the Department of Investigation of Serious Accidents in Abu Dhabi Traffic Department, attributed the causes of the accident to the lack of sufficient distance between vehicles and to carelessness.

Instantly, ambulances and police patrols were rushed to the scene and dealt with it promptly after the Operations Command and Control Centre received the tip off.

Al Mansouri called on motorists to abide by safe driving, traffic laws and pay attention to avoid accidents in order to protect road users and their safety.

The Abu Dhabi Police launched an accelerator to “reduce road traffic deaths to 3 per 100,000 inhabitants” by 2021, an initiative among government accelerators to achieve the national agenda.

According to the Traffic and Patrols Directorate, the accelerator aims to reduce the number of deaths by 25% in the third quarter of this year compared to the same period last year.

The Police noted that it includes media awareness about the dangers of preoccupation with the road on social media and broadcast awareness videos to protect pedestrians in public transport buses of the Department of Transport.

The accelerator is being implemented in coordination and partnership with the Department of Transport, the Department of Urban Planning and Municipalities, to carry out the engineering improvements required to improve traffic safety levels on the Emirate’s roads.

Police explained that the main causes of death on the roads of the emirate were identified: the busyness of the road, excessive speed and lack of appreciation of road users, and these reasons were selected as the most prominent in the cause of deaths in the third quarter of 2018.