CAIRO: While most university students start their day trying to find friends or heading to their morning class, at the German University in Cairo (GUC), students have a different drill: checking the dreaded notice board near the mosque to see if they will be attending the death prayers of yet another fellow student caught in a car accident on his way to college.
The Ring Road leading to the complexes where GUC and several other university campuses are located has become a death trap, claiming the lives of dozens of college students each year.
And with the American University in Cairo (AUC) moving to the new campus in the same area next month, even more young lives will be at stake.
Ahmed El Sha’er, a GUC senior student says that he has witnessed at least half a dozen accidents on the Ring Road on his way to school which have killed both innocent drivers and drivers at fault.
Most of the young people who use this road are university students who cause accidents either due to lack of experience or to reckless driving.
With some zipping at speeds of over 180 km an hour to show off in front of their friends, catastrophe is always just around the corner as groups of three or four cars race one another, endangering the live of any driver in their way.
But reckless young drivers are not the only ones to blame for the Ring Road tragedies. Huge trailers and trucks that frequently use this road have caused accidents that are even more deadly.
These trucks are often overloaded and hence difficult to control and they spin across the road slamming against other cars.
In one incident, a petrol truck caught fire in the middle of the road and flipped over, crushing seven cars and killing their young drivers instantly.
Despite government efforts to improve safety on the Ring Road, irregular bumps still send speedy cars flying in the air. Motorists also complain from the sand scattered in different parts of the road which makes it slippery, causing more disastrous accidents.
Abdel Gawad, who heads the transportation department at AUC, shares parents concern about the dangerous route to the new campus, advising students not to drive but to take the shuttle bus provided by the university.
“AUC will transport its students in safe buses with qualified drivers, he told Daily News Egypt.
Despite the warnings, it is likely that will continue to drive to college to avoid being bound by a bus schedule.
Minister of Transportation Mohamed Mansour declared last May the launch of a new project that will ensure safety on the Ring Road, saying that the first step will be to have trained patrol officers regularly stationed along this road to detect any violations and penalize the offenders.
In a bid to deal to stave off accidents before the AUC move, The Right Road, an student-run road safety club, is organizing awareness campaigns about the dangers of reckless driving.
“The club is also trying to collaborate with the government and the university administration to improve the road, Yomna Safwat the club’s president told Daily News Egypt.
With the high accident rate in the area, an efficient ambulance system is much needed, but, according to GUC students, ambulances arrive too late and there are sometimes not enough of them to transport all the casualties.
Bystanders are usually forced to transport victims in their own unequipped cars which can aggravate their injuries.
To confront the lack of an efficient ambulance system, AUC is implementing major improvements in its clinic. According to Dr Mohamed Amin, the university clinic’s acting director, AUC will have a fully equipped ambulance standing by on campus in case of emergencies.
“The university is collaborating with many nearby hospitals to provide immediate medical care for car accident victims, he told Daily News Egypt.
