Successfully completed the petition

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Thank you for the support! The petition has officially received 200 plus signatures to gain credibility and forward to the Traffic Department of RAK.  I contacted a journalist who has been helpful throughout the campaign Anna Zacharias who suggested to meet the authorities in person which would be more effective to send the message home and convince them of the gravity of the problem.

According to national newspaper, in 2008, E11 of RAK had the second highest number of accidents resulting in death or injury and the third highest number of deaths after the Emirates and Ittihad highways, accounting for seven of the emirate’s 97 deaths that year. There are six u-turns in a four km stretch which had history of reckless drivers wrecking the roads. The authorities keep blaming the drivers and do less to prevent the accidents there by closing the u-turn.

Thanks to all the people from twitter, forums, friends and colleagues to sign the petition, I will try to reach Sheikh Saud of RAK to convince him about the gravity of the situation and finally get our efforts to fruition by closing the u-turns to prevent accidents.

My next step is to make foundation which spreads safety awareness through media by making pictures and radio ads which will hit the emotional core and change the attitude of drivers. The foundation will be named as Suraya Foundation. If you do know anybody in radio stations, great graphic artists ready to do pro bono work please contact me at founder (at) surayafoundation.com. Read this blog for more updates. 

Update (28 April 2010): Formed the preliminary website  of Suraya Foundation (note it may experience usual downtime as it may be updating).

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“Why are you doing this?”

U-turns to be closed

After successful completion of the petition I decided to show it to authorities who had the power to close it down. On May I metup with the Head of Traffic Police in RAK along with a journalist of The National and an official of Public Works both of them said “Yes, Yes we will close down the u-turn!“, the official in Public Works went further stating “When I first got the job I suggested closing down the u-turn“, I was very happy and the journalist went ahead to print this news . I specifically asked them “Do you think it would be useful to do a professional survey done on the roads?” He replied go ahead “Anything that helps in ur analysis (wait a min didn’t you just say you decided to close the u-turn?) we would encourage to do it“.

On June I devoted my time to start road safety organization Suraya Foundation and at the same time tried to get the permission to survey the site. It took me three days initially to figure out which department provides the permission (each one kept pointing to each other). Nobody spoke Arabic and each person pointed another. I drove back again during the last week to get the permission and waited 2 days for 3 hours each day in his office but he was always busy. I tried talking to the official (who said he tried to close on first day of job) and he asked me to wait then suddenly asked “Why are you doing this?” I said “To save lives….” He interrupted and asked “I know, but why are you actually doing this?” That moment my jaw dropped and I said “I dont know you tell me“.  After waiting for one more hour the secretary tells me “Sorry the director does not have even one minute to meet“. In frustration I drive back to Traffic Police to give one last try and I just drop into random office who asked me for specifications of camera and then forwards me to guy whom I addressed Major. He jokingly replied “I aint major I will break your mouth if you say that“. The Major had ladies smoking in his office, it seems they were giving discounts for speeding tickets like Abu Dhabi. He then graciously led me to a room where after 30 minutes they give me permission letter which had period wrong and had to be corrected.  Phew! Just getting permission to survey the area took 26 hours of my time.  I then the same day handed the permission letter to Managing Director of i4Research company who completed the survey last week and would be analyzing the data.

The thing I learned is persistence and determination may pay but in the end it is up to the authorities to get the end results.

Zero Tolerance on accident mortality rate?

Source:Mena

Just read the news here that the General Commander of Dubai Police, Dhahi Khalfan Tamim stating that “The Dubai traffic police last year managed to reduce traffic-related deaths to 12.8 per 100,000, from 17.8 in 2008 and 21 in 2007, he said. This year, the target is to reduce the number to 11.8.” Didn’t the population of UAE reduce in 2009 with the recession here? Did they achieve viable results?

Tamim further added traffic safety will be a priority for the police for the next 10 years, for which they will act under a four-pronged strategy.

i, Correcting common mistakes

ii,Road monitoring

iii, Vehicle monitoring

iv, Public road safety awareness

Wouldn’t it be better to put Road safety awareness first? It would have been much easier to change the behaviors of drivers using time tested methods of prevention than deploying police to monitor the maniac drivers?

According to General Tamim, “Statistics have shown that improper driving habits cause 90 per cent of traffic accidents in Dubai, while faulty road engineering contributes to another three per cent“

I dont know the source of this stats but it is enough to create a sense of urgency to start tackling the issue by changing the attitude fo the drivers.

Source: www.surayafoundation.com

One year of pain

It’s been a year since that accident which affected the lives of my family. The case is stil going on and we are trying hard to seek justice. It is sad to open up newspapers and read the accidents with so called expert authorities blaming on the drivers and doing nothing.

I believe in action people who go out of their way to make the lives of other people easier and safe.  I believe in this quote by George Bernard Shaw

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

Being unreasonable in the eyes of people who are just observers is not a bad thing. It would be sin to not to try to do anything even after possessing knowledge to rectify the problem. I have started the petition http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/close-uturns which is on process of getting 200 signatures and got in touch with road safety research company and they volunteered to collect data from the accident site. There are some great Samaritans who take action and like warrior see everything as a challenge striving to solve them.

On this first year anniversary of my sister’s death, I take pride to announce that I will form a non-profit organization named after my sister Suraya foundation to make roads safer by sreading messages which changes attitudes of the drivers. A message which reminds them of the dangers of reckless driving, a message which reminds them the price they will have to pay for their hastiness, a message which delves into their emotional mind and will stick long after they have heard the message.

I am trying to get together bunch of talented artists in graphics, sound engineering, radio and voice artists to make messages in three languages – English, Arabic and Hindi. If you do know and want to help in someway please mail me at me (at) shanzzenith.com.

“Action” people

It is based on my experience, in a room of 100 if I present and inspire the audience to take some action no matter how small it is . If I follow on one week later, I have found always the case that only 20 people or less have taken the action. It is and always have been the case which follows a law named Pareto’s law or 80/20 principle.

I have started the campaign I talked to more than 500 people to sign up the petition. They comfort me , pass condilences but when it comes to taking action many flunk. It is sadly the case with the world where 20% of people in country own 80% of wealth not because they inherited or they got lucky , it’s because these people are of different breed called “action” people. These people preservere and are determined to get things done.

Here is a case of a good Samaritan named Sebastian Tan who took the initiative to raise awareness of unsafe u-turn in Dubai. Here is the complete letter titled “Close dangerous u-turns“.

Source: Gulf News

Close dangerous U-turns

I wish to add to a recent community report concerning the dangers along Al Mankhool Road, in Dubai (“Municipality action makes walking a joy”, Gulf News, December 6). It is not only the large bushes that are a matter of concern. I strongly urge the authorities to close up the two U-turns which are located in front of the hotels on this stretch of road.

Many horrific accidents have happened along this particular road because many motorists have to use the U-turn and end up facing speeding vehicles, including public buses.

It is infuriating to note that motorists lining up to make the turns are always honking and putting pressure on the car in front of them to move, when they know that oncoming cars are travelling at a high speed.

In the five years that I have resided in this area, I have seen many major and minor accidents — almost every week — along this stretch.

Before any more serious accidents occur, it would be wise for the Dubai Police or Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) to close up the U-turns and only allow it at the traffic junction just a short distance further up the road in both directions.

I am sure the authorities have monitored this section closely, but I believe the situation has become serious and something must be done about it urgently.

Before accident statistics start to add up even more, I strongly urge the authorities to seal off the U-turns and prevent this menace.

My point is if you feel you can save lives or make positive change by raising awareness then take the initiative and make the change, don’t just turn a blind eye and ignore, go ahead and raise awareness via talking to your friends, community, local newspaper & blogs. Karma will return to reward you oneday, someday in someway.