Saudi Arabia is introducing an annual prize to encourage motorists to drive safely, Maj. Gen. Sulaiman Al-Ajlan, Director General of Traffic Administration, has announced. Al-Ajlan hopes the prize will motivate drivers to be more safety conscious, which will lead to a reduction in traffic accidents. The scheme is the latest brainchild of the traffic administration designed to cut the large numbers of deaths on Saudi Arabia's roads. The reward system will work with the new state-of-the-art Saher traffic system to reduce road fatalities, speeding and reckless driving. Al-Ajlan was quoted by Asharq Al-Awsat Arabic newspaper as citing recent statistics showing that Saher has significantly reduced the rate of fatal traffic accidents. “No one can dispute the discipline that the Saher system has brought to erratic and reckless drivers,” he told the newspaper. However, he insisted on tighter controls to stop motorists jumping red lights and said a newer Saher version will be rolled out in the coming months. Plans are also under way for a “higher traffic council” which will work alongside ambulatory authorities to implement traffic and safety rules. This will free up traffic departments to organize peak hour traffic flow and prevent traffic jams and bottlenecks. Al-Ajlan downplayed shortcomings in the current method of recording fatal traffic accidents saying “there are always discrepancies between the administration's and the ministry's death statistics”. He cited traffic departments registering those who die in traffic accidents and not those who die later in hospitals as the cause of statistical discrepancies.
