CAIRO: Three teenagers died Saturday when a private car in which they were travelling fell off a bridge into the Mahmoudia roadside canal north of Cairo, Youm7 reported.
Another two were injured in the accident, health ministry sources told Youm7, adding that their ages ranged from 15 to 19.
Civil protection forces rushed to the site and pulled the bodies from the canal. The injured were transported to Damanhour hospital while the three corpses were transported to the morgue within the same hospital.
Preliminary investigations revealed that the accident occurred due as the driver lost control of the car because of over-speeding, security sources at Behira security directorate told Youm7.
Road safety in Egypt is of a great concern. According to a report issued by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) in April 2015, an average of 17 people died per day in road accidents in Egypt in 2014.
A total of 14,403 road accidents took place in Egypt in 2014, 7.5 percent less than in 2013, according to the report.
Human error caused 59.2 percent of all 2014 road accidents, while 19.3 percent were caused by technical failure, the report said.
A 2011 report by CAPMAS showed that Egypt has the Middle East’s highest road fatality rate.
Laws regulating seatbelt and blood alcohol testing have been recently issued to lessen road accidents plaguing the Arab world’s most populous country, but the rate of road accidents does not indicate that these laws are enough nor are properly enforced.