Muscat: The World Health Organisation (WHO) has ranked Oman the 10th most dangerous country for driving in the world due to the heavy traffic-related death toll.
The other nine countries which made the list include: Libya, Iraq, Guinea-Bissau, South Africa, Nigeria, Venezuela, Thailand, the Dominican Republic and Eritrea (in order).
The (WHO) Global Status Report on Road Safety looks at the number of road deaths that have occurred annually for every 100,000 of a country’s population.
According to the new report, Oman is the worst-ranked country among all the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states, with a rate of 30.4 traffic-related deaths taking place for every 100,000 residents.
Bahrain emerged as the safest GCC country for driving, with a rate of 10 deaths only, followed by the United Arab Emirates (12.7 deaths), Qatar (14 deaths), Kuwait (16.5 deaths).
The WHO report ranked the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as the second most dangerous country for driving, after Oman, with a rate of 24.8 accident-related deaths for every 100,000 people.
The previous WHO edition of the Global Status Report on Road Safety ranked Oman second most dangerous GCC country with 25.4 deaths, after Saudi Arabia which had then a rate of 27.4 deaths per 100,000.
Last year, 4,721 accidents occurred on Oman’s roads, which resulted in 692 deaths and 3,261 injuries, down from 6,279 accidents, 675 deaths and 3,624 injuries in 2015, said Times of Oman.
According to fresh statistics compiled by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI), 428 have already died in road accidents deaths as of August of this year, up by 8.1 per cent increase in fatalities during the same period last year.