AUCians do care!
One can witness from the upper pictures how the streets in Cairo most of the time look like. People keep complaining how much time they spend in their cars in order to get anywhere because the streets are always a mess. “Official statistics estimate that 8000 people are killed and 32,000 hurt on Egyptian road accidents each year” (Egypt Car Accidents) . This is due to Egypt’s share in bad roads and people not following the rules. For example on the highways here in Egypt such as the “Mehwar” and the “Ring Road” you can find people crossing the streets while the cars are driving with a very high speed. Moreover the trucks and the buses that are old and insecure to drive are a cause of these accidents too. “According to one study the accident rate in Egypt is about 34 times higher than in the European countries and roughly three times higher than countries in the Middle East”(Egypt Car Accidents.) Our first semester in AUC at the new campus in new Cairo was in fall 2008. Almost everyday there was at least one student who had an accident on his or her way to college. Most of the time, it was either on the “ring road” or “road 90”. Road 90 is a 10km long road that connects the ring road with college. Cars always drive with a very high speed on it while there are u-turns, people crossing the street and a lot of cars and buses that drive the wrong way. These factors caused a lot of accidents and harmed a lot of people.
And because The American University in Cairo is known for its numerous clubs that help students getting involved within the Egyptian society and being aware of its problems, AUCians initiated a new club which aim is raising people’s awareness of traffic problems, accidents, and other issues related to road safety. Yomna Safwat, the club founder and one of the 400 delegates of the World Youth Assembly for Road Safety conference in Switzerland, states ‘I believe car accidents are a preventable danger.” The club members had launched a campaign “Road Safety is No Accident.” Actually, the Right Road is an international organization that works jointly with the United Nation’s World Health Organization. It currently exists in AUC and in Cairo University too. The awareness campaign focuses more on spreading a model for safe driving in the ring road. The club hopes that this ideal leaves its marks on Cairo’s streets in the future. The campaign was also concerned with areas around New Cairo. They put speedy bumps, zebra lines for crossing, renewed roadside signs, added safe driving banners, and provided streets lights for the roads that didn’t have ones. Beside these actions, the club organized many lectures on campus to promote the organization’s ideas and concerns. Some of these lectures included first-aid workshops. AUC President David Arnold is strongly encouraging also the club’s initiations and the campaigns it does. He emphasized that “the issue of road safety is one of the biggest priorities we have in terms of concerns for students, faculty and staff.” Finally, we can conclude that traffic jam and accidents are dramatic problems in Egypt. So if each college, school, or company felt responsible for educating its students and employees of the road safety issues and did a similar initiation; the situation will certainly improve and accidents’ death rate will reduce.
Written by:
Miral Abou El Dahab
Inji El Hawari
Works Cited:
Ghawayesh. “Egypt has tons of cars.” No date. Online image. Politics and Soccer:
Egyptian traffic. 17th Mar. 2008.
< http://a517dogg.blogspot.com/2008/03/egyptian-traffic.html>
“Traffic jam in Cairo!” No date. Online image. Morgan Writes. 7th Feb. 2008.
< http://morganwrites.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/noise-pollution-in-cairo-
can-kill-you/>
“The slogan “Road Safety is No Accident.”” No date. Online image. UN Global Road
Safety Week.
Comments
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Posted by: Custom Research Papers | October 22, 2009 02:40 AM
Thanks for telling us this -- it was really interesting because I've never seen traffic this bad in Boston, Massachusetts (where I am from) or any of the countries I've visited. I admire the efforts of the club that was formed; it seems like a good and relevant cause. Do you think it works? Have accident rates been decreased?
Posted by: Cyana (PWR Visual Rhetoric) | November 15, 2009 01:13 PM
And I thought Los Angeles traffic on the 405 and 101 were bad...those photos are crazy! This was a really insightful post, and I'm glad AUC students are making an effort to better road conditions and safety on the roads.
Posted by: Atira (PWR Visual Rhetoric) | November 15, 2009 10:42 PM