Muscat: The latest statistics issued by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI) about road traffic in the Sultanate of Oman reflects tangible improvement in safety indicators over the past five years (2017-2021). It indicates a decline in number of road accidents, a rise in lengths of roads and an increase in number of vehicles.

According to the NCSI, the number of road accidents in Oman dropped by 60% over the past five years (2017-2021), down from 3,845 (or the equivalent of 1 road accident per 3 hours by the end of 2017) to 1,539 accidents (1 accident per 6 hours by the end of 2021).

During the above mentioned period, the road accidents left 1,621 people injured and 434 dead. Omani constituted 76% of the injured and 66% of the dead as at the end of 2021.

By 2021, speeding was cited as the most common cause of road accidents (53.3% accounting for 820 accidents), while collisions topped the list of “types” of road accidents (41.1%).

Data shows that most accidents (58%) in the Sultanate of Oman occur outside the boundary of cities and that accidents along straight roads accounted for 51% of the total number of accidents, of which 809 happened in the night and 730 in the daytime.

Statistics show that the number of vehicles registered in Oman in 2021 stood at 1,553,000 (1.55 million), down by 0.3% as against 2020. Private vehicles constituted 79.4% of the total number of vehicles registered in Oman.