The population of Kuwait faces a lot of problems associated with traffic safety. In particular, car accidents make the greatest adverse influence on people’s well-being because they have led to more than 400 deaths every year since 2012 (Toumi). It is revealed that many Kuwaitis are often hurt in accidents that happen every 10 minutes, but the majority of victims include expatriates. Even though the government tries to do its best in order to minimalize associated risks, success is not yet achieved because foreigners who are not aware of particular traffic rules and necessity to follow them are constantly coming to the country.
Kuwait is full of expatriates some of them do not have any particular profession and get occupied with any job they can handle while others work as community helpers and drivers. They all are used to the kind of traffic that is present in their native countries and tend to follow their rules. Even though these foreigners receive Civil ID cards and a Kuwaiti driver’s license, not all of them are made to take learning and driving tests. As a result, they can hardly adapt to the fact that the speed limit on major highways and urban roads is rather limited, and no one educates them or checks whether they do their best to meet these rules or not.
Even though many local drivers fail to follow traffic regulations accepted in Kuwait, the majority of violations are conducted by foreigners. This claim can be proved by the recent claim of the head of the Kuwaiti Traffic Safety Society: in June, “we had 40 deaths, nine Kuwaitis and 31 expatriates” (Toumi). This population is mainly caught on speeding that leads to car accidents and results in deaths while driving alone for any purposes or with a family to the shops. Some expatriates break the speed limit while driving to work because they are afraid of being late. These ordinary situations reveal that foreigners are just used to fast driving, and this habit cannot be eliminated immediately.
Foreigners are in a hurry because they have a lot of things to do and fail to meet the deadline. They are often late, which makes them driving faster than 120 km/h even though the allowed speed limit prevents them from doing it. Moreover, a lot of expatriates learned to drive without any assistance, which affects the quality of this skill adversely (AlSaeid et al. 70). In this way, a lot of them used a car even before obtaining a license.
Thus, it cannot be denied that the improvement of traffic safety and driving behavior is required to minimalize the number of deaths in Kuwait and make its expatriates follow traffic rules developed by the government. The reduction of car accidents caused by foreigners can be achieved in several steps. Along with this purpose, such goals as a reduction of population, careless driving, and congestion should be considered because they are tightly connected with accidents (Hajeeh 87).
In particular, the more people are in Kuwait, the more vehicles are on the streets, and the more accidents can happen. Failing to follow all rules and facing the necessity to spend a lot of time in traffic jams, drivers become less concentrated, which causes accidents.
In order to minimalize the number of car accidents, especially those caused by expatriates, the government of Kuwait should consider the possibility of sending those foreigners whose carelessness while driving led to severe injuries or death of other people back home. Of course, an investigation is needed to ensure that a person was really guilty of the accident. In a similar way, those people who crash their cars more than once or have several fines because of breaking the speed limit should be sent home.
Improvement can be achieved with the development of strict traffic rules and regulations. Drivers should not have an opportunity to create potentially harmful situations that lead to accidents. In this way, enhanced monitoring systems are also needed, as they allow identifying issues that occur on the streets and make it easier to find a person who caused them. These initiatives are to be supported by the awareness campaign to ensure that the population of Kuwait is familiar with the established changes.
Licensing rules for expatriates should become stricter. In this way, those individuals who do not have good driving skills will not have an opportunity to use vehicles. Learning and driving tests should be obligatory for every foreigner to ensure that they are able to meet regulations of Kuwait. Regular car inspection tests should be required to ensure that their condition is good enough for usage and is not likely to lead to any issues.
It can be concluded that one of the most critical problems associated with traffic in Kuwait is car accidents that are caused by expatriates. They often violate the speed limit and other associated rules because of being in a hurry, having poor driving skills, and being careless. As a result, numerous foreigners die every year, taking away the lives of native citizens as well. The improvement of this situation can be achieved if stricter rules are imposed, and the process of obtaining and maintaining a license improves.
Works Cited
AlSaeid, Hana, et al. “Road Safety in Kuwait: Results from a Recent Survey.” International Journal of Transportation, vol. 3, no. 2, 2015, pp. 65-72.
Hajeeh, Mohammed. “Traffic Accidents in Kuwait: A Decision Making Analysis.” International Journal of Applied Mathematics and Informatics, vol. 6, no. 2, 2012, pp. 84-91.
Toumi, Habib. “A Car Accident Every 10 Minutes in Kuwait.” Gulf News. 2017. Web.