A world where eight or nine jumbo jets filled with passengers crashed each day with no survivors seems unthinkable.
Yet such a situation roughly equates to the number of people – about 3,260 – who die on the world’s roads on an average day, based on figures from 2021.
This devastating toll, which works out at about 1.2 million deaths each year, has been called "the silent pandemic".
Road accidents are the biggest killer of young people globally, the World Health Organisation (WHO) says. In the UK, for example, they cause the deaths of about five people each day and result in 80 being seriously injured, indicate figures reported by Brake, an advocate for safer roads.
“If anything else came into our lives and was harming people at that rate, more change would be done,” says Luca Straker, Brake's campaign manager.
“The media quite often covers that a crash has happened in which people have been killed but it seems to just be part of our lives rather than something that shocks people. A lot of people seem to think it’s inevitable that crashes will happen on the road, whereas we believe that every single crash is preventable.”
The world is approaching the halfway point of the UN's Decade of Action for Road Safety, which set the target of halving road deaths between the start of 2021 and the end of 2030. In 2021, the global total was almost 1.2 million road deaths.
In the previous decade there had been a 5 per cent reduction in deaths despite significant growth in the number of vehicles.
Challenging targets
Prof Chris Cherry, who researches road safety at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, said the UN’s target, which demands much faster reductions in accident rates in the 2020s than were seen in the 2010s, will be hard to achieve.
“One of the real challenges with those sorts of goals is there’s not usually a specific one thing you can focus on,” Prof Cherry said.
“These are system failures that happen across many different agencies and institutions. Individuals have different levels of responsibility and what that’s historically allowed people to do is to deflect responsibility.”
Lucy Harrison, justice and outreach manager for RoadPeace, a charity that supports those involved in road crashes, said that even when someone is culpable "many in society still won't view this as a criminal act".
"Further, police investigate crashes from a position of finding out if someone is to blame but we don’t really investigate crashes from a point of looking at the cause."
She suggested the UK should go ahead with setting up the proposed Road Safety Investigation Branch, mirroring its Air Accidents Investigation Branch.
"A change in culture is desperately needed," Ms Harrison said. "We won’t truly tackle road death until every stakeholder understands it is preventable and unnecessary.
"Measures should be aimed at those who cause the most harm on our roads, instead of those who cause the least. Our politicians and leaders need to meet crash victims and hear their stories, and understand the horrendous ripple effect and life-long consequences that serious road crashes have."
According to the WHO, males are three times as likely to be killed in road accidents as females, while effects are felt most severely in low and middle-income countries, which have 60 per cent of the world’s vehicles but account for 92 per cent of road deaths.
A quarter of those killed were in four-wheeled vehicles, with 30 per cent motorcyclists, 21 per cent pedestrians, 5 per cent cyclists and 19 per cent in coaches, buses, lorries and other vehicles.
Beyond the horrific death toll, 20 million to 50 million people suffer non-fatal injuries in road crashes each year, with some permanently disabled.
Controlling speed is central to efforts to reduce road deaths, because when vehicles are travelling faster, accidents are more likely and often more severe. The stopping distance of a car travelling at 30mph is double that of one going at 20mph.
“We have a lot of engineering arrogance in our profession, that we’ll just build a better guardrail and that will solve all of our problems, but in reality there are so many things that can go wrong at speed and we can’t try to predict all of them,” Prof Cherry said.
Need for tighter control
To keep speeds down, limits must be strictly enforced, says Prof Stefan Bauernschuster, of the University of Passau in Germany.
“Telling people speeding is dangerous – and there are many deaths because of speeding – this is completely futile,” he said. “What helps is if people are afraid they will get caught: if you exceed the expected speed, you will be caught. They drive more carefully, this reduces accidents.”
Echoing this, Prof Cherry said cities that have done well in curbing the problem are mostly European ones that have focused on speed management.
“Some of that is enabled by automated enforcement schemes for red-light running, for speeding, [and] dramatically reducing speed limits in areas where there are any pedestrians,” he said.
“These 30kph roads are safe enough inherently that if a crash happens, it doesn’t result in deaths or at least seldom results in deaths.”
Efforts to lower speeds often face opposition, such as in Wales, where the introduction of a default 20mph limit in built-up areas in September 2023 was met with an opposing petition signed by half a million people.
However, in the first 12 months after the policy was introduced, the number of crashes fell by 26 per cent and the related death toll also dropped, as did injuries.
Ms Straker said speed limit reductions in urban areas encourage people to walk, reducing the number of vehicles on the road.
Numbers reduced in UAE
According to official figures, the death rate on the roads in the UAE, adjusted for population, fell by two thirds between 2010 and 2019.
Thomas Edelmann, founder and managing director of Road Safety UAE, credits the improvement with measures including better enforcement of traffic laws, such as through cameras to detect speeding, jumping red lights and whether someone is wearing a seat belt.
More modern vehicles with technology such as collision warning and prevention systems have played a role, as have improved emergency medical treatment and education campaigns, said Mr Edelmann.
He suggests further improvements, both in the UAE and globally, could come from more universal use of seat belts and efforts to tackle “distracted driving”, among other policies.
“The use of the mobile phone must be restricted, by education and by technology,” he said. “Start road safety education in kindergartens and schools to instil the right safety habits as early as possible.”
While he said full autonomous driving technology could help in the long term, currently it appears to be “far away” from implementation. Prof Cherry has a similar view.
“I’m sceptical that the technology will scale at a price point that’s competitive in a way that transforms our mobility system in a meaningful way,” he said.
As the world continues to grapple with the challenge of reducing road deaths, Ms Straker said halving the global rate was feasible “if robust, bold measures and changes happen” and the effects that road deaths have on families highlight the need for urgent action.
“It’s a horrific thing for anyone to have to go through,” Ms Straker said. "It’s indescribable pain these crashes cause."
UK’s AI plan
- AI ambassadors such as MIT economist Simon Johnson, Monzo cofounder Tom Blomfield and Google DeepMind’s Raia Hadsell
- £10bn AI growth zone in South Wales to create 5,000 jobs
- £100m of government support for startups building AI hardware products
- £250m to train new AI models
Classification of skills
A worker is categorised as skilled by the MOHRE based on nine levels given in the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) issued by the International Labour Organisation.
A skilled worker would be someone at a professional level (levels 1 – 5) which includes managers, professionals, technicians and associate professionals, clerical support workers, and service and sales workers.
The worker must also have an attested educational certificate higher than secondary or an equivalent certification, and earn a monthly salary of at least Dh4,000.
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
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Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Akeed
Based: Muscat
Launch year: 2018
Number of employees: 40
Sector: Online food delivery
Funding: Raised $3.2m since inception
It Was Just an Accident
Director: Jafar Panahi
Stars: Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi, Hadis Pakbaten, Majid Panahi, Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr
Rating: 4/5
The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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10 tips for entry-level job seekers
- Have an up-to-date, professional LinkedIn profile. If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, set one up today. Avoid poor-quality profile pictures with distracting backgrounds. Include a professional summary and begin to grow your network.
- Keep track of the job trends in your sector through the news. Apply for job alerts at your dream organisations and the types of jobs you want – LinkedIn uses AI to share similar relevant jobs based on your selections.
- Double check that you’ve highlighted relevant skills on your resume and LinkedIn profile.
- For most entry-level jobs, your resume will first be filtered by an applicant tracking system for keywords. Look closely at the description of the job you are applying for and mirror the language as much as possible (while being honest and accurate about your skills and experience).
- Keep your CV professional and in a simple format – make sure you tailor your cover letter and application to the company and role.
- Go online and look for details on job specifications for your target position. Make a list of skills required and set yourself some learning goals to tick off all the necessary skills one by one.
- Don’t be afraid to reach outside your immediate friends and family to other acquaintances and let them know you are looking for new opportunities.
- Make sure you’ve set your LinkedIn profile to signal that you are “open to opportunities”. Also be sure to use LinkedIn to search for people who are still actively hiring by searching for those that have the headline “I’m hiring” or “We’re hiring” in their profile.
- Prepare for online interviews using mock interview tools. Even before landing interviews, it can be useful to start practising.
- Be professional and patient. Always be professional with whoever you are interacting with throughout your search process, this will be remembered. You need to be patient, dedicated and not give up on your search. Candidates need to make sure they are following up appropriately for roles they have applied.
Arda Atalay, head of Mena private sector at LinkedIn Talent Solutions, Rudy Bier, managing partner of Kinetic Business Solutions and Ben Kinerman Daltrey, co-founder of KinFitz
Desert Warrior
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Rating: 3/5
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
The language of diplomacy in 1853
Treaty of Peace in Perpetuity Agreed Upon by the Chiefs of the Arabian Coast on Behalf of Themselves, Their Heirs and Successors Under the Mediation of the Resident of the Persian Gulf, 1853
(This treaty gave the region the name “Trucial States”.)
We, whose seals are hereunto affixed, Sheikh Sultan bin Suggar, Chief of Rassool-Kheimah, Sheikh Saeed bin Tahnoon, Chief of Aboo Dhebbee, Sheikh Saeed bin Buyte, Chief of Debay, Sheikh Hamid bin Rashed, Chief of Ejman, Sheikh Abdoola bin Rashed, Chief of Umm-ool-Keiweyn, having experienced for a series of years the benefits and advantages resulting from a maritime truce contracted amongst ourselves under the mediation of the Resident in the Persian Gulf and renewed from time to time up to the present period, and being fully impressed, therefore, with a sense of evil consequence formerly arising, from the prosecution of our feuds at sea, whereby our subjects and dependants were prevented from carrying on the pearl fishery in security, and were exposed to interruption and molestation when passing on their lawful occasions, accordingly, we, as aforesaid have determined, for ourselves, our heirs and successors, to conclude together a lasting and inviolable peace from this time forth in perpetuity.
Taken from Britain and Saudi Arabia, 1925-1939: the Imperial Oasis, by Clive Leatherdale
