Let them Live, Please
Tuesday, 20 November 2007
Saudi Gazette
By Abdullah Al Asmary
JUST before dawn and while the moon is still shining, an eight-passenger van is due to tour this sleepy part of the capital city of Riyadh. At such an early hour, it is not going to distribute the day newspapers or fetch milk but rather take clients, mainly female teachers, to a long and tedious journey to deliver lessons tens of miles away.
As many as eight female teachers are squeezed in a mini-bus and begin the daily journey to a remote village where they are due to deliver lessons. In a blink of an eye, the journey may turn into a human tragedy.
This time the tragedy unfolded in the northeastern city of Tabuk. Last Wednesday, as many as 10 people lost their lives when a mini-bus carrying six female teachers collided with a family Suburban. In this shockingly fatal accident, five teachers and the bus driver died instantly and one is still in a critical condition in the city hospital. The accident also claimed the lives of four passengers in the other car.
The images of the accident published the other day in the local newspapers were truly moving. Blood-stained textbooks, scattered notebooks and a pile of disfigured cars vividly described how tragic the accident had been.
However, what draws attention is the startling graphic published in Al-Watan daily last Thursday. The graphic outlined the number of traffic accidents that have occurred during 2007 and involved female teachers. In Yanbu, five female teachers and their driver were killed when their car crashed earlier this year. On April 7, four other teachers escaped an inevitably dramatic accident when their car was suddenly flooded with rainwater in the northern city of Jizan. Here in Riyadh and in less that 20 days after the Jizan incident, two female teachers lost their lives in a car crash. Their driver and two other passengers in the other vehicle were also killed in it.
On April 28, another tragic accident occurred in Muhayel Asir, a southern town, and involved five women teachers when they were on their way back home. Luckily, they were slightly injured. On May 20, as many as eight teachers were injured when the car's driver lost control of it on a dangerous curve in Najran. The car turned upside down but no severe injuries were reported. A month later, two cars carrying female teachers to their work places outside Madina collided. Five injuries were reported in the incident.
On September 16, a van crashed while carrying female teachers in Al-Ahsa province. Two teachers were seriously injured and the driver was killed in the accident.
The growing number of collision fatalities of such type is worth discussing. Although the Ministry of Education has repeatedly asserted that every female teacher should stay and live close to her school, many of them continue to commute to their work daily despite the numerous hazards that surround their voyage.
Practically, the ministry is unable to put further restrictions on teachers' living, nor has it the ability to oversee any violations. It is also unreasonable for many desperate teachers to abandon their jobs simply because it enables them to make two ends meet for them. However, it is really important for the ministry and other affiliated sectors to impose tougher safety measures either for drivers or vehicles.
As far as the place of work is concerned, the Ministry of Education should take all necessary measures to ensure that a newly appointed teacher is to live permanently in the town or village where her school is located until transferred elsewhere. For those appointed far from their families, the ministry has successfully developed a new transfer plan. The commuter teacher is transferred to a desired place if she collects credits based on her experience, annual report and the length of service. Education officials have long denied any favoritism in regard to the received applications they receive amid widespread suspicion.
Nearly all fatal accidents that are caused to female teachers are caused by the car's poor condition, driver's distractions and the road condition. Even without prior knowledge of the necessary safety precautions, women teachers tend to rent a vehicle with its driver and negotiate a price without inspecting the vehicle or checking the driver's license.
In many cases, the rented car is not meant for use of passengers but rather for transporting goods and other commodities.
Drivers are blamed, too. Some of them do not sleep well the night before, so they feel drowsy while driving putting the lives of their passengers at grave risk. Also, driving too fast contributes greatly to the increase in number of car accidents in the Kingdom.
Also, the use of cell phones contributes greatly to numerous fatal accidents. Stricter punitive measures are needed to curb the tendency of drivers using mobile phones while driving.
In the end, the growing number of car accidents involving female teachers or students has attracted the attention of universities and research centers. A research team from King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology (KAACST) studied these accidents and put forward several recommendations. It emphasized the importance of taking extreme safety measures. The vehicle used for female teachers' transportation should regularly be checked for any possible failure in its brakes, engine or tires.
The research team also urged the Ministry of Education to reduce the heavy teaching load of many commuter teachers and cut the working days into three days per week. It finally asked the ministry to provide teachers with a training course in first aid and life-saving tips.
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