Moroccan insurances paid over $ 352 million for road accidents victims in 2003

Moroccan insurance companies paid in 2003 over MAD 3 billion as indemnities for victims of road accidents.

This amount constitutes 44.69 percent of spending and indemnities of overall insurances operations (life insurance excluded).

Road accidents in Morocco killed 3,878 people and seriously injured 35,000 others in 2003.

A colloquium held Friday, in the Moroccan capital, on road accidents revealed that indemnities and expenses related to accidents involving physical injuries in 2003 were estimated at USD 117 million, i.e 10.56pc of overall indemnities and expenses.

Road accidents in the north African country cause huge economic losses. Their total cost is valued at over 1 billion Euro, that is 2.5pc of the GDP.

Participants in the colloquium recalled that UNESCO placed road accidents as the first of 40 threats that are worse than the atomic bomb.

Road accidents are a human act, they noted, underlining

that reckless driving causes about 84 to 89 percent of road accidents in the country.

Poor roads and other circumstances are responsible for only 2 to 3 percent of the total number of accidents.

The implementation of an emergency strategic plan for road safety as of April 2004 has contributed to the drop of road accidents compared to the previous year.

Accidents involving physical injury numbered 40,496 in 2004, i.e

-6.6pc. Some 2818 people (-3.6pc) perished in road accidents in the same year, while 9982 others have sustained serious injuries (-13.3pc).