Stop killing the Egyptian people in public transport

Dear citizens of the world....

The case of lack of safety of The Egyptian people on public transport is becoming increasingly disastrous. The facts from valid international statistics reflect the very catastrophic situation:

- 120 railway accidents occur in average annually in Egypt
- 3 days ago a new railway accident happened with 58 deaths and 143 injuries
- The railway accidents cost Egypt $1.3 billion, which is about 8\% of the annual gross national production.

- An Egyptian ferry sank last year with more than a thousand deaths (A number which is comparable to the victims of the Israeli-Lebanese war.) Investigations have proven the lack of safety and emergency standards on board, in addition to severe delay and inefficiency of life saving efforts by the Egyptian authorities

- Road traffic accidents in Egypt cost the country more than 6000 deaths/year which is 8 times the average international numbers, and 30 times the equivalent statistics in the UK. Road traffic accidents are the second avoidable cause of death after heart diseases in Egypt.
- Injuries due to road traffic accidents cause 30 thousand injuries annually in Egypt, being the most common cause of hospital admission in Egypt, in addition to the economic cost which rises to $ 500 million.

The Egyptian authorities are not doing enough to reduce the incidence of accidents in Egypt. They are not acting efficiently to augment the safety measures in public transport. This is due to multiple factors, including lack of resources, corruption, disarrangement of priorities by the government, absence of effective pressure on the decision-makers to consider the lives of people, immaturity of the civil community in Egypt, and weak administrative and judiciary systems.

The poor Egyptian citizens, already underprivileged by poverty and everyday suffering risk their lives more than once daily, using public transport which is deficient of the basic standards of safety, being run by untrained staff, with lack of maintenance of equipments. After accidents take place, life saving measures and first aids are another failure due to the same reasons affecting ambulance services, and the excessively sluggish status of the Egyptian traffic. Victims who die or become disabled following accidents are not insured and receive extremely poor compensations from the government (averagely $900 for the dead and $500 for the wounded). This means that their families and dependants will suffer for the rest of their lives as well.

Through this petition, we -the undersigned- are screaming for help from the international community to impose:

- Pressure on the Egyptian government to give priority to safety of its own people on public transport.
- Aid to the Egyptian civil community to develop a financially supported organisation in charge of ensuring safety in Egyptian public transport.
- A revolutionary reform of the Egyptian administrative systems managing public transport, which should include sufficient budgets for safety measures on public transport, training of staff, maintenance of equipment and adequate supervision.
- Pressure on the Egyptian authorities to induce a genuine reform of the judiciary system
- An efficient system to minimise the suffering of the victims of accidents, through improvement of the health services, insurance and/or compensation.

78 million Egyptians will be definitely able to lead better lives, only if you can give them a hand.