Egypt Today: With You On the Road

CAIRO - 30 August 2017: It’s the last days of summer and with the holidays soon coming to an end we’re all hitting the road in the lead-up to Eid vacation. Before you set off to hotspot destinations including Sahel, Sukhna and Gouna, tune in to Egypt Today at egypttoday.com where we’ll be With You On the Road.

Tragic accidents on the roads can easily be avoided if you drive sensibly and follow the basic safety regulations. Starting today and every day through the first week of September, we’ll be rolling out a series of stories to help raise awareness of road safety issues.

We’re teaming up with safety consultants The Nada Foundation, who are already canvassing Sahel to work with young drivers and families, to showcase how community campaigns really can change perceptions and help save lives.

Celebrity auto expert Tamer Beshir joins us to share road safety tips for both drivers and passengers and reviews of the safety features you need to look for when buying a new car. Beshir is also assessing the challenges of making our roads safe and looking at the successes achieved so far.

How much do you really know about road safety? We hit the streets to ask pedestrians and motorists how they brave capital’s streets, whether they wear seatbelts, strap their kids into child seats or use pedestrian crossings—you might be surprised and even amused by the answers our reporters got back!

What surprised us too was how little people know about Egypt’s traffic law and the new proposed amendments soon to be debated in parliament. Our expert writers and videographers walk you through the various regulations tackled by the law as well as the fines and punishments, comparing how we stack up against other countries around the world.

Other countries have managed to shrink their accident rates by enforcing radical penalties and at times eye-watering fines. We look at how much you’d pay if you drove recklessly abroad, assessing in-depth how measures like proper signage, awareness campaigns and rigorous vehicle maintenance have all worked to keep the numbers low.

While government and private-sector initiatives to fix roads can help save hundreds of lives, it’s changing the culture of irresponsible driving that really needs work. Among the leading causes of deaths and accidents is drinking under the influence and while abroad that’s mostly taken to be drink-driving, here in Egypt it’s actually drug driving, especially among truckers needing stimulants to keep them awake during long hauls. After an especially tragic accident in 2014, Egypt’s government launched an operation to keep reckless drivers off the roads. Three years later the number of deaths caused by drug-driving have been slashed in half, proving that rigorous policing—and educating motorists—can, and does, save lives.