Car accident fatality rates in Egypt declined by 16.8 % since 2005: CAPMAS

Car accident fatality rates in Egypt declined by 16.8 percent between 2005 and 2015, the state’s official statistics body CAPMAS announced Monday.

In an emailed statement, CAMPAS said that its newly-published study titled “Economic cost of road accidents in Egypt in 2015” concluded that Egypt saw 25,500 road fatalities last year, while the total number of car accidents was 14,500, a decline of 31.9 percent from 2005 and an increase of 1 percent from 2014.

The study’s methodology is an estimate of the gross output loss, by calculating the potential revenue that crash victims would have contributed to Egypt’s economy in 2015 if they had not suffered any road accidents, according to CAPMAS.

According to the study, the total estimated lost revenue amounted to EGP 30.2 billion, with fatalities costing EGP 24.1 billion, serious injuries costing EGP 3.7 billion, and minor injuries costing EGP 0.6 billion, in addition to EGP 1.8 billion in compensation paid by insurance companies.

A campaign was launched earlier this week on social media demanding that measures be taken to reduce deadly car accidents after a high-profile incident where a mother lost her seven-year-old daughter to a truck accident.

Social media users expressed solidarity with the mother on Facebook and Twitter with hashtags and messages like “no to trucks in rush hours” and “medical tests for truck drivers.”

According to a global status report on road safety in 2015 published by the World Health Organisation, Egypt’s fatality rate ranked 16th among Arab countries and 109th globally out of 180 countries.

Libya was ranked the worst globally, while the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain were the lowest among Arab countries.