Road accidents in Egypt kill an average of 30 people every day, former transportation minister Essam Sharaf said at a conference held in Cairo on Sunday to commemorate the International World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Accident Victims. The conference was organized by the Road Safety Union in cooperation with World Health Organization Regional Director Dr. Hussein al-Jaziri. During the event's opening ceremony, Sharaf noted that road safety in Egypt had improved following Egypt's accession to the Moscow Declaration, one element of which was the promotion of a "Decade of Action"--from 2011to 2020--for road safety. Sharaf went on to say that road accidents happened in Egypt with much greater frequency than they did abroad, pointing out that hundreds of Egyptians are killed in road accidents every month. Road accidents represent the second most common cause of death in Egypt. A government report revealed that an average of 18 Egyptians were killed in road accidents every day last year alone. The high incidence of road accidents in Egypt is generally attributed to poor roads, a failure to follow traffic rules, and frequent cases of drug abuse among truck and bus drivers. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
