Drivers who run red lights are gambling with their own lives and the lives of everyone around them, according to a senior Dubai Police official who singled out the violation as one of the gravest threats faced at intersections.
Brigadier Juma Salem Bin Suwaidan, Director of the General Department of Traffic at Dubai Police, said the behaviour repeatedly results in severe injuries and loss of life, particularly where multiple streams of traffic converge.
Why drivers commit the offence comes down to a handful of recurring habits, he explained. Some try to shave seconds off their journey by making split-second decisions behind the wheel. Others lose their focus to mobile phones, push to clear a junction in the final instant before the light changes, or simply misread how far away other vehicles are and how fast they are moving.
Figures cited by the brigadier show the toll so far this year. Police logged 41 crashes tied to red-light running since January, leaving four people dead and injuring another 55 to differing degrees.
Bin Suwaidan laid out what he expects from motorists: ease off the accelerator well before reaching a junction, keep a safe gap from the vehicle ahead, stay fully attentive, and stop on yellow whenever halting can be done safely rather than speeding through.
Signals exist to keep traffic moving in an orderly way and to protect everyone using the road, he noted, framing any decision to ignore them as both a breach of the law and a reckless dismissal of other people’s safety, most of all at busy crossings fed by several directions at once.
The force said it is pressing ahead with awareness drives and tighter enforcement, leaning on smart systems and traffic monitoring tools to catch hazardous conduct on the road.
For the brigadier, the matter is not left to personal preference. He described stopping for a red light as a legal obligation and a mark of civilised conduct, insisting that safer roads depend on cooperation from every person behind the wheel.
