Over 12,000 school students and parents from youth centres and schools across the northern communities and Doha participated in the Ras Laffan Community Outreach Programme (COP) road safety initiative, ‘Darb Al Salama.’

The ‘Darb Al Salama’ initiative supports the Qatar National Vision 2030 and aims at improving road safety in Qatar’s northern communities. The programme is organised in partnership with the Ministry of Interior, Traffic Department, Qatar Red Crescent, and Community Policing Department.

‘Darb Al Salama,’ which targets drivers, passengers and pedestrians aged between 14-21 years, has proven to be tremendously successful. The programme kicked off in the northern communities and was brought to Doha during the 31st GCC Traffic Week, where more than 9,000 people participated.

Commenting on ‘Darb Al Salama,’ Lt Col Ahmad Zayed Al Mohannadi, Director of Community Policingat North Security Department said: “I am happy to see that initiatives like the Ras Laffan Community Outreach Programme, ‘Darb Al Salama’ are helping keep our roads safe. Protecting the wellbeing of Qatar’s citizens is the nation’s top priority and by educating our youth, we are helping cultivate a new traffic culture centred on safety.”

The programme uses a mix of experiential and computer-based driver education software to help change driving and road safety behaviour, with the long term vision of reducing fatalities and serious injuries resulting from road accidents.

The technology supporting the initiative includes the ‘Rakkiz Tislam’ programme. Used for the first time in the Middle East, ‘Rakkiz Tislam’ is a driver learning software module which is based on a highly successful young driver scheme in the UK designed to help young drivers identify and respond to potentially unsafe traffic situations. The programme was designed and tailored to Qatar’s roads and driving environment and includes real traffic scenes filmed on Qatar’s roads.

Commenting on his impression of the ‘Rakkiz Tislam’ technology, Mubarak Al Kaabi Manager of Al Kabaan Youth Center said: “I was really impressed with the advanced technology of ‘Rakkiz Tislam,’ and I think that it was a great idea to include interactive activities in order to educate people on road safety. The participants who used the ‘Razzik Tislam’ programme were impressed because the module included real traffic scenes filmed on Qatar’s roads, which made their experience more realistic.”

To date ‘Darb Al Salama’ has visited Al Thakhira, Al Khor, Simaisma, Al Shamal and Al Kaaban Youth Centre. The campaign is one of the many activities planned to take place in the months ahead in the northern communities.

The outreach campaign is brought to Qatar by Ras Laffan Industrial City Community Outreach Programme. COP is a consortium that includes Qatar Petroleum, RasGas, Dolphin Energy Limited, Pearl GTL (the world’s largest gas to liquids plant delivered by Qatar Petroleum and Qatar Shell), Oryx GTL, Qatargas, and Gulf Gas. COP supports many long-term sustainable initiatives in the areas of education, culture, health, environment, security and safety. It supports local programmes in collaboration with cultural institutes, youth centres, NGOs, and women associations in the northern communities.

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