Muscat – The latest data released by National Centre for Statistics and Information shows tangible improvement in traffic safety in the last five years, highlighting a reduction in road accidents.

The statistics reveal the number of accidents in Oman decreased 60 per cent in the last five years – from 3,845 in 2017 to 1,539 in 2021.

In 2017, there was an accident every three hours which reduced to one every six hours at the end of 2021.

In 2021, traffic accidents resulted in 1,621 injuries and 434 deaths. Omanis accounted for 76 per cent of the total injuries and 66 per cent of deaths.

Past figures show 640 people were killed in traffic accidents in 2017, 637 in 2018, 511 in 2019 and 371 in 2020.

The data for 2021 indicates collisions between vehicles constituted the most common type – 41.1 per cent – of all traffic accidents.

Speed was the biggest cause of accidents, with 820 caused by speeding vehicles, constituting 53.3 per cent of the total traffic accidents.

Other causes of accidents include misconduct while driving (282 accidents), negligence (153), failure to leave appropriate safe distance between vehicles (122), overtaking (56) and vehicle defects (41). Sixty-five traffic accidents occurred as a result of other reasons in 2021.

The data revealed 58 per cent of accidents occur outside cities, and most on highways, accounting for 51 per cent of the total accidents. While 809 accidents occurred during night, 730 happened during day.

Additionally, the data indicated 1,553,000 vehicles were registered in Oman in 2021, down 0.3 per cent from 2020. Private vehicles constituted 79.4 per cent of the total vehicles registered in the sultanate. The people-to-vehicle ratio was three to one, while density of vehicles per square kilometre was five vehicles per kilometre.