Road accidents in Egypt down by 24.2% in first half of 2018

The first half of 2018 saw 4,426 road accidents in Egypt, down from 5,836 in the same period in 2017; a drop of 24.2 percent, the state's statistics agency said.

In a report, the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) said that deaths from road accidents decreased to 1,560 in the first half of 2018, compared to 1,929 in the same period last year.

The number of accidents on highways was recorded at 24.6 accidents per day in the first half of 2018, compared to 32.4 over the same period last year.

The first half of 2018 also recorded 8.7 deaths from road accidents per day, compared to 10.7 over the same period last year.

Injuries from road accidents dropped to 33 per day, compared to 40.4 in the first half of 2017.

The report also showed that the main cause of road accidents was driver error, at 75.7 percent, followed by technical malfunctions, at 17.1 percent, and poor road maintenance at 2.9 percent.

The report also said that there was a spike in train accidents, reaching 1,082 accidents in the first half of 2018, compared to 793 in 2017; a 36.4 percent increase.

Deadly road accidents take place on a daily basis in Egypt due to poor road safety, badly maintained infrastructure, and loosely enforced traffic regulations.

However, Egypt has allocated millions of pounds on developing and expanding road networks in recent years.

In 2017, the government has also passed a new, comprehensive traffic law to crackdown on violators and enhance safety and security. 

The law will go into effect in 2020.

Last year, CAPMAS said that the number of road accidents which took place in Egypt in 2017 dropped to 11,000 from around 15,000 the previous year.