Crash statistics
 Information on road crashes in Oman are collected at the scene by the Royal Oman Police. Statistics on crashes such as the number, location, date and time as well as the consequent deaths and injuries are published from time to time on by the ROP's Public Relations department on its website. More detailed statistics under gender, age and user categories are collated and published in booklet form in March the following year and distributed during the annual GCC Road Traffic Week.
However, in common with many other low-to-middle Income countries, Oman's published crash data suffers from a number of the limitations highlighted by the Global status report on road safety published by the World Health Organisation in Geneva on June 15, 2009. The most important of these include the absence of:-
- an integrated data base;
- estimate of cost to the economy of road traffic death and injury;
- distinction between categories of wheeled road-users i.e. cars, cyclists, motorcyclists;
- distinction between child passenger and child pedestrian victims;
- information on use of seatbelts/child restraints or seating positions in the crashed vehicle.
For country profiles and to compare Oman's performance in the Global status report on road safety, click here
Crash overview 
Despite the sustained efforts of the authorities, the number of road crashes in Oman has escalated this millennium and it has one of the worst reported road crash fatality rates in the world (actual rate of 29/30 per 100,000 population in 2007 and 2008 respectively adjusted by WHO to 21.3). From 2000 to 2008 nearly 6000 men, women and children have lost their lives in crashes on Oman's roads and 70,000 have been injured, some disabled for life. This is a staggering number in a population of under three million (Ministry of National Economy mid-2007 estimate). Over the past eight years, Oman's annual death rate from road crashes alone has doubled. 2008 was a record year recording a rise of 20% over 2007, itself a record-breaking year with 15.5% more deaths than 2006.* 2009 is on course to trump previous years recording a 9% rise by May 10, the last date statistics were published.
The WHO's Global status report predicts that, by 2030, deaths from road crashes will rise to the 5th leading cause of death globally and that rates will double in low-medium income countries such as Oman.
Oman crash scenarios
Excessive speed is involved in the vast majority of road crashes and the consequences for pedestrians and passengers are deadly. The soaring death and injury rate contrasted with a year on year decrease in the absolute number of crashes suggests either that crashes have increasingly catastrophic results or indicate a change in data collection methodology.
Statistically, most fatal crashes (52%) occur Wednesday-Friday on 2-lane arterial highways passing through the busy market towns of interior Oman as weekly commuters to the capital Muscat return home to their families. Some never make it. Fatal crashes at these black spots are invariably multiple vehicle pile-ups caused by vehicles overtaking on both sides of these carriage ways which are not separated by barriers and benefit from few, if any, speed management measures.*
Speed, machismo and poor driving skills combine to cause high-impact, head-on or side-swiping collisions. With many drivers exceeding the 120 km/h speed limit, the combined kinetic force of a crash may be as much as 300 km/h, scattering bodies and wreckage far and wide. Other traffic is invariably caught up in the resultant mayhem with vehicles ricocheting into one other, often bursting into flames (see Oman crash news and archive)
 Factor in the high numbers of children and young people (over)- crowded into cars for the weekend and the spiralling mortality rate should come as no surprise. Low rates of seatbelt wearing and negligible use of child restraints (see Survey) leave occupants with a minimal chance of survival. Time and time again, one driver’s thrill-seeking/stupidity results in a living nightmare of death and destruction of innocents, often his/her own family members.
Slides: Al Mustadaama (Sustainability) compiled from ROP statistics
*Apparent dip in both graphs for 2006 due to incomplete published statistics on child deaths
Annual Statistics Booklets
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