Egypt

Country Summary

Every year, about 13,000 Egyptians (70% male) lose their lives as a result of road crashes while around 154,000 suffer from non-fatal injuries and permanent disabilities. Almost half of those killed in motor vehicle crashes (48%) are occupants (passengers and drivers) of four-wheeled vehicles while pedestrians make up an additional 20%. Traffic flows in Egypt are chaotic with trucks, pedestrians, two-wheelers, buses and motor vehicles, all sharing the same space. Infrastructure is often weak, particularly for vulnerable road users.

Laws for managing speed, blood alcohol concentration for the general population, seat-belt wearing and helmet wearing do exist. However, they are not strongly enforced. Sustained and highly visible policing, coupled with public education and infrastructural improvements, are the key challenges that need to be addressed in order to reduce the road traffic injury and death toll in Egypt. Egypt does have a National Council for Road Safety lacking however strategy and targets.

Our Activities in Egypt

Egypt is one of ten countries included in the Road Safety in 10 Countries (RS10) project funded through a grant from the Bloomberg Philanthropies. The project is carried out by national bodies with technical support from a consortium of road safety partners, including the World Health Organisation, the Global Road Safety Partnership, the International Injury Research Center from Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and the Association for Safe International Road Travel (ASIRT). The overall goal of RS10 in Egypt is to support the Egyptian government to implement good practices in order to reduce deaths and injuries due to road traffic collisions. Within that framework, we helped organize a risk management workshop on Speed Management in Cairo in 2010. The workshop targeted key stakeholders such as the Ministry of Health and Transport and the national police. Participants used the opportunity to share lessons learned and discuss cost effective solutions.

In 2012, Egypt will be one of the 11 countries benefiting from the capacity building programme that we are conducting for the Mediterranean countries through a 3-year EU funded project.