DUBAI: United Arab Emirates residents are thanking BlackBerry for outages last week in reducing the number of traffic accidents, police reported this week. The outages meant users in the wealthy-Gulf emirate were unable to use their device while driving. According to global traffic statistics, the UAE is 8th highest in the world at 37.1 traffic deaths per 100,000 people annually, slightly lower than Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. According to a Wired.com report, there is an accident every three minutes in Dubai and a fatality every other day in Abu Dhabi. The Abu Dhabi Traffic Department said that 14 percent of those are a direct result of using a mobile phone while driving. According to state-owned newspaper The National, there were 20 percent fewer accidents in Dubai and 40 percent fewer accidents in Abu Dhabi during the three days when BlackBerry services were down. “It's important to note that this is merely correlation and causation can't necessarily be inferred, but the police in the UAE believe that Blackberry played a role in making the roads safer,” reported Wired.com Police Brigadier General Hussein al-Harethi said “the roads became much safer when Blackberry stopped working.” BlackBerry usage is now back to normal after last week's outage and traffic accidents are again on the rise, police officials told Bikyamasr.com. “We need better crackdown on those using their phones while driving because it just isn't safe any longer to be on the road,” said the source. BM
