In a sign of improving safety on Qatar’s roads, deaths due to traffic accidents went down by 21.6% last year.

A senior official of the General Directorate of Traffic at the Ministry of Interior said faster emergency response was one of the key reasons behind the encouraging statistic, reported The Peninsula.

The number of road fatalities in 2016 was 178, down from 227 a year earlier. Of the 178 deaths, 66 were drivers, 55 passengers and 57 of them pedestrians.

“The number of road fatalities decreased due to improvement in ambulance services and the addition of several new radars and police patrols on Qatar’s roads,” said Brigadier Mohamed Saad Al Kharji.

Traffic offenses in the country also showed a 4.5% decline, from 1,720,735 in 2015 to 1,643,209 in 2016. However, it still meant that around 4,564 violations were recorded every day, or 190 violations per hour.

Of the total number of road fatalities, 94.9% were men and 5.1% women. Most number of road deaths happened to people aged between 21 and 30.

Around 97.5% of road accidents reported in 2016 were minor ones and did not result in any injury to anyone.

About half of major accidents last year (44.6 %) were a result of negligence, recklessness and lack of caution. Failure to maintain enough space between vehicles caused six deaths, 68 serious injuries and 1,323 minor injuries.

Of the total road fatalities, Asians represented 53.9%, Arab expatriates 21.9%, and the citizens from other GCC states were at 1.7%.