Assessment of Road Safety Audit Status in Gaza Strip, Palestine

Abstract

Local statistics in the last ten years indicate that the number of road accidents in both Gaza Strip and the West Bank is continuously increasing. Recent statistics by the Traffic Accidents Investigation Office of the Palestinian Police, recorded 2710 road accidents in 2016 in Gaza Strip, causing 84 deaths with a high rate of fatalities per 100,000 vehicles. This work aims to provide a general study about traffic safety condition in Gaza Strip and to assess the status of road safety audit (RSA). This work is also expected to encourage stakeholder agencies in Gaza Strip to make potential changes toward enhancing traffic safety. The results and discussion in this paper are based on the collected data on RSA actions in Gaza Strip’s agencies by several methods; interviews, electronic communications and exploring several specialized local and international websites. This was followed by a comparison between local and international procedures of RSA. The results indicate that traffic safety sector in Gaza Strip suffers from several shortages and deficiencies. The results also proved that the local implementation of RSA is non-frequent and unsystematic. They also revealed that there is no adopted or standard guideline for RSA in Gaza Strip and that there is a lack of qualified and multi-disciplinary RSA teams. The research concludes that traffic safety sector in Gaza Strip needs more attention as well as continuous development. The adopted RSA guidelines for the West Bank (version 2013) are suitable and they are recommended to be used in Gaza Strip.