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Dubai traffic: 50 accidents in 20 minutes cause major delays during rush hour
Police app's 'accident indicator' showed numerous traffic incidents across the emirate
About 50 road accidents were recorded in 20 minutes in Dubai on Monday morning by the official Dubai Police app. At 9am, a map overview of the emirate displayed a swamp of purple icons indicating collisions across the city (see below) and Khaleej Times counted scores of fender-benders that occurred during peak rush hour.
See the map below:
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Severe congestions were reported on key arterial roads in the city. At the time of publication, Dubai Police had alerted motorists to two major accidents that were causing tailbacks. The first was on Hessa Street, opposite Saudi German Hospital, heading to Sheikh Zayed Road. A collision on the key route had caused a traffic jam; residents were therefore directed to use alternate routes.
A second accident on Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Road, opposite International City, heading towards Sharjah was also causing obstruction of traffic.
Police shared a video of one of the collisions that occurred at a junction, in which a 4WD could be seen slamming into a sedan while navigating a U-turn. The impact caused the sedan, which seems to have jumped the stoplight, to skid across a couple of lanes before coming to a stop at the box junction. The video later showed police at the scene, blocking one lane at the intersection, as vehicles were forced to manouevre around the crash site. Watch the video below:
Alleviating traffic woes
Currently, several road improvement projects are in play across the city to alleviate traffic woes and slash travel time between emirates.
A new bridge from Sheikh Zayed Road to Dubai Harbour was announced on Sunday that is expected to slash travel time to the from 12 minutes to three. The 1,500-metre bridge will have two lanes in each direction and will provide free traffic flow to and from Dubai Harbour.
The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) also completed a project recently to improve traffic flow along a 2km-stretch of road from the intersection of Algeria Street and Al Khawaneej Street (South) to the intersection of Tunis Street (North) at Al Muhaisnah (1) and Al Mizhar (1).
Dubai Police is preparing to launch a new artificial intelligence powered system that will make reporting road accidents easier. The technique will also determine who was at fault in an accident, saving time and resources for the police. It will approximately reduce 50% of manual tasks and processes.
The system provides an easy way for drivers to report road accidents. When someone is involved in an accident, they can submit the data along with photographs on the Dubai Police app.
Dangerous practice
More than 35,000 drivers were caught using their mobile phones behind the wheel in the first eight months of 2023. This dangerous practice has led to 99 accidents, resulting in the death of six people and injury to 58 others, the Dubai Police revealed. A Dh800 fine and four black points shall be imposed on drivers caught using phones on the road.
It was also revealed that eight people were killed and 339 more were injured in run-over accidents in 2023, as people crossed the roads from undesignated places.
The month of September last year saw the most number of jaywalkers caught by Dubai Police at 4,591, followed by May with 4,252 violations; then October at 4,239; and August at 4,169.
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