BEIRUT: A blanket of white covered the seaside road between Ramlet al-Baida and Raouche Sunday as several hundred people marched in solidarity to demand that the government follow through on promises to make traffic safety a high priority.
Dressed in white, they had gathered to remember Talal Qassem, 17, who was killed last Tuesday when a car hit him in Raouche – part of their walk covered Qassem’s final steps.
The tragedy hit home for employees at Fransabank, which organized the event, as bank chairman and Minister of State Adnan Qassar is Qassem’s great uncle.
Qassar, who was in attendance for the procession, was joined by bank employees who stressed that the event should be used to make people realize the true magnitude of the traffic safety problem.
“Everyone knows someone who has been through this kind of death,” Rasha Badian, a Fransabank employee, told the Daily Star. “It’s a tragedy. We tried to make people feel that this is a huge issue.”
The main plea came from Qassem’s mother, Zeina Qassar, and another mother, who lost her child earlier this year: drive more carefully.
She said her son died “because the law is weaker than the people, and people are stronger than the law, and because the roads here are roads of death, not life.”
“What she [Qassem’s mother] said was really touching,” said Mireille Tauitian, a former teacher of Qassem, and a concerned mother of two.
“I think if a mom was listening to that, she will definitely have her heart broken, and start nagging at her kids to drive slowly,” she added, noting that many drivers “pressure” others to ignore traffic laws.
Badian said the event “raises awareness of the huge impact of bad driving in Lebanon, but I don’t think things will get better.”
Ramy Mecherkany, an employee at Fransabank, said an improvement should come not from passing new legislation, but from implementing the already-existing traffic laws.
“There is no problem in the laws. There is a problem with the implementation of the laws. We just need strict implementation, or at least sound implementation,” Mecherkany said.
Mecherkany added that he had hope that a younger generation of politicians, along with a younger, more politically-aware public, would make this issue a priority.
Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud was in attendance, causing some to question whether he was there for a photo opportunity, or if the latest incident was a tipping point for him to take serious action.
Baroud has been a vocal champion of stricter driving laws and has hit the streets to monitor the actions of the ministry-affiliated Internal Security Forces, or police.
But his campaigns haven’t convinced the entire public.
“He shouldn’t have been here. We were holding a sign that said ‘who is responsible’ so I think it was him,” said Tauitian.
Tauitian argued that she has not seen any real change and believes that even if the interior minister wanted to make these changes, he would be stuck with the same old Lebanese bureaucracy.
Echoing the sentiments, Badian said that unless politicians assumed responsibility for the road traffic problem, things would never improve.
“I think Minister Baroud can do so many things, but I am sure that higher entities aren’t letting him do so,” Badian said.
The Interior Ministry released statistics on traffic fatalities in recent years Saturday, showing that 2010 has seen a slight tailing-off.
Meanwhile, the event served as a wake-up call about road conditions and how drivers and pedestrians should act responsibly, while they await a stronger position from the government regarding road safety.
This was the case for Qassem’s International College (IC) classmates who attended the event, recognizing that they need to be more careful when it comes to traffic safety.
“In an instant so much can change and you need to be careful as much as you possibly can,” said Nadia, 16, a student at International College.
Her fellow IC student Loulwa, 16, said the message to drivers was clear.
“They should drive carefully before someone other than Talal dies, because every day people die [in accidents].”
She added that several people’s lives have been claimed in similar accidents since Qassem’s death.
Baola, 16, also a student at IC, went further, saying that it is not only the drivers who are at fault in these tragic cases but that the fault can also lie partly with the pedestrian.
“It is also our mistake because we don’t look, but we don’t expect to die when we cross the street,” Baola said.
Although speed and carelessness are usually cited as the most important causes of accidents, the demonstrators stressed the need for pedestrian walkways and bridges on many busy streets to improve road safety.
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