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F3 Driver Warns Students of Dangers of Speeding

ABU DHABI — Fifty per cent of road accidents all over the world involve excess speed as driving at 160km per hour, the vehicle loses road grip by up to 50-60 per cent, which increases the chances of accident, said Basil Shaaban, Formula3 driver.

If a person drives at 100km per hour, the vehicle loses its road grip by up to 25 per cent. The seat belts are most important for the safety of the driver and passengers as they reduce risk of death by 61 per cent, head injury by 70 per cent and other injuries by 41 per cent,
Shaaban said.

At a special session on “Road Safety and Defensive Driving” at Al Hosn University in the capital on Sunday evening, Shaaban demonstrated to students how to drive safely in compliance with traffic rules.

He first explained to students how F1 cars are safe at high speed. F1 cars follow a mechanism which puts pressure downwards as speed increases but normal cars do not have this, which makes them more vulnerable to collision at
high speed, Shaaban said.

The event was organised by Al Hosn University in association with Salama, the public safety awareness initiative in Abu Dhabi emirate.

The Lebanese driver displayed real F3 video clippings of his car colliding on race track because a frontrunner car broke down on track suddenly, which led to an accident involving nine cars.

Shaaban said, “At the time of collision, my speed was 189km per hour and my helmet got damaged but when I got out from the car, I was completely safe without any injury as I had buckled
up myself properly.”

Most of the time, use of mobile phone while driving leads to fatal accidents as it delays the response on road, said Shaaban, who has been participating in F3 European Championship from 2007.

He hopes to be participating in Formula races at Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi in 2012.

Around 1.2 million people die everyday in tragic road accidents, 20-30 million people get injured or disabled because of speed and reckless driving, Shaaban said.

Mostly, youngsters aged between 10 and 24 years are involved in traffic accidents, he said.

anwar@khaleejtimes.com