Bus crash in Hurghada injures 42

A bush crash on the Ras Ghareb-Hurghada Road near the Red Sea injured 42 people on Monday, reported the state-owned Middle East News Agency (MENA).

Injuries ranged from moderate to critical, but no casualties have yet been reported, according to a Ministry of Health statement. Most of the passengers were transferred to the Ras Ghareb Hospital, while 12 others were taken to the Hurghada Public Hospital.

This is the latest in a string of grisly of automotive accidents. Last week in Luxor, 19 people were killed and eight injured when two microbuses drove into an irrigation canal. The drivers were reportedly speeding and lost control of their vehicles when they swerved to avoid oncoming traffic.

A bush crash outside Sharm el-Sheikh last week killed at least 44 passengers and injured dozens more, while a microbus accident in Alexandria in early July left one dead and five injured.

In late April, three microbuses crashed into a truck on the Beni Suef-Fayoum Highway southwest of Cairo in an accident that killed 10 and injured 14.

Fatal road accidents are endemic in Egypt, claiming at least 12,000 lives each year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The crashes are most often due to a combination of human error and poor maintenance.

Although Egypt’s traffic laws prohibit speeding and mandate wearing seatbelts as well as other road safety basics, these laws are rarely enforced, WHO notes.

Traffic problems are further exacerbated by a poor public transportation system, meaning that the majority of Egyptians must either own a private car or continue to support the industry of microbuses and tuk tuks that has sprung up to fill the public transportation gap. This leads to traffic congestion and unsafe conditions on poorly monitored and poorly maintained roads.

The government census agency states that 18 people die every day due to traffic accidents. According to the state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram, a recently published government report showed that at least 100,000 road accidents occurred in Egypt between 2008 and 2012, resulting in at least 12,000 deaths and 150,000 injuries.