Last month the son of good friends of mine was killed, hit by a car as he crossed the street on the way to school – his life cut short at just 17 years of age. The same week he was killed I heard that at least another half dozen others were also killed in vehicle accidents. As a conservative estimate, almost 7,000 people have lost their lives on Lebanon’s roads since 2000, and thousands more injured.
Were the roads kept up properly, and even the most basic safety rules enforced by the authorities and adhered to by drivers, the vast majority of these individual tragedies could have been avoided.
The human cost of this carnage is incalculable.
Where we can begin to quantify the loss, however, is in strain on the medical and insurance sectors, and the loss of economic productivity. Antiquated cars speeding down badly paved roads is also bad for the environment. On many levels, the malaise on our roadways impacts our lives.
It also helps steer away foreign investment and foreign human capital – who wants to move to a place where their family is threatened daily by a nation of irresponsible morons playing bumper tag?
And while foreigners can choose to stay away, most Lebanese have little choice but to remain here and run the gauntlet each and every day they venture out on our lawless roads.
In the same week as the fatalities were piling up, Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces General Directorate issued figures showing traffic fatalities had dropped somewhat compared to previous years. With fatalities still ludicrously high, however, this is no reason celebrate.
Ironically, it is only the fact that our roads are in such bad condition that the body count is not higher. Imagine the death toll if we had European-style highways on which Lebanese drivers could give full expression to their juvenile need for speed.
The government must act. Lebanon should not be a country where children have to risk so much just to cross the street, fearing drivers who, by and large, conform to no road regulations and who know that law enforcement agencies will do nothing to oblige them to. This must end.
How many people have to die before the state wakes up?
