BlackBerry outage made roads safer, police claim

According to media reports, police in the United Arab Emirates have given a surprising explanation for a dramatic fall in traffic accidents last week: drivers’ BlackBerrys weren’t working.

It’s claimed that last week’s worldwide BlackBerry outage, which frustrated business people around the world who were unable to communicate with their colleagues, had one positive result – less texting and reading of emails by people who should have been concentrating on driving instead.

Road traffic accidents in Abu Dhabi are said to have dropped by 40%, and there was a 20% reduction in Dubai in the past week.

According to The National newspaper, Lt Gen Dahi Khalfan Tamim, the chief of Dubai Police, and Brig Gen Hussein Al Harethi, the director of the Abu Dhabi Police traffic…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, or drop him an email.