King urges collective action to end death on the roads

AMMAN — His Majesty King Abdullah on Tuesday took to Twitter to urge people to abide by traffic laws.

"Every day, we lose a child or a young person as a result of non-abidance by traffic laws. We all have to fight the phenomenon with determination and responsibility," His Majesty tweeted in Arabic on his account.

The remark came two days after four children died and 23 others were injured on Sunday in a two-vehicle collision in Mafraq, 80km northeast of Amman.

Al Rai daily on Tuesday reported that the mother of one dead child died on Monday following a heart attack caused by  "grief on her four-year-old son".

In March, a three-vehicle accident on the desert highway killed eight people, and injured 19 others.

Central Traffic Department statistics for 2016 showed that 542 people died in around 8,000 accidents in the first nine months of 2016, while 1,270 critical injuries and 12,000 minor injuries were recorded during the same period.

The annual cost of traffic accidents in Jordan reaches $2 billion, accounting for 5.59 per cent of the GDP, according to figures released by the Transport Ministry in March.