Qatar Shell Raises Road Safety Awareness at the 31st GCC Traffic Week

The 31^st GCC Traffic Week took place in Darb Al Saai, where Qatar Shell showcased a specially-designed interactive exhibition stand, and presented the ‘Rakkiz Tislam’ programme, in cooperation with the Ras Laffan Industrial City Community Outreach Program (COP).

‘Rakkiz Tislam’ (meaning ‘Focus and be Safe’), which has been brought to the Middle East for the first time, is a realistic driver learning software module based on a highly successful young driver scheme in the UK. The programme, designed to help young drivers identify and respond to potentially unsafe traffic situations, was designed and tailored to Qatar’s roads and driving environment, and includes real traffic scenes filmed on Qatar’s roads.

The stand has been visited by thousands of visitors, especially young people, who learned about road safety and participated in ‘Rakkiz Tislam’ challenge.

The initiative was targeted at young drivers (aged 14-21), who pose the greatest risk of being involved in road accidents, as their brain is still developing, and therefore they take more risks while driving, plus lack of experience and training.

In an effort to tackle these issues, the stand included various training sessions (which are part of the ‘Rakkiz Tislam’ programme) for the young drivers.

During the exhibition, Qatar Shell also presented its ‘Hizamak Amanak’ programme, which emphasises the importance of wearing a seatbelt to avoid serious injuries.  Statistics of the road safety attitudes survey conducted by Ipsos Mori for Qatar Shell in 2012,  show that only 64% of Qataris aged 16 to 21 wear a seatbelt, compared to 75% among the age category 22 to 49. Statistics also highlight that the percentage of expatriates who buckle up is almost 90%. Safety regulations were found to be the major factor in forcing drivers to adopt road safety measures. On average, 81% of drivers buckled up, compared to 71% of front-seat passengers and only 8% of back-seat passengers. Concerning children, statistics have indicated that only 31%of the children aged under 12 use a child’s car seat, posing a great risk to the safety of the remaining 69% of children who don’t use a car seat.

QatarEnergy and Qatar Shell share strict road safety standards, which have produced outstanding results. In their flagship operation, Pearl Gas to Liquids (GTL), over 600 million kilometres have been driven without a significant incident.