KARACHI, Oct 9: A 1.6 per cent rise has been noticed in fatality rate in road traffic accidents during the past nine months as compared with the corresponding span of the previous year, according to statistics compiled by the traffic police.
The data shows that 859 road traffic accidents took place during the last nine months as compared with 868 during the corresponding period of last year. Though, a slight drop can be noticed in accidents, the fatalities are higher than the previous year.
The statistics show that 441 fatal accidents occurred during nine months this year with 482 deaths as compared with 444 accidents reported in the corresponding phase of the previous year with 474 deaths. Since January this year, 724 people were injured in accidents while 758 got hurt during the corresponding period of previous year.
Among 482 people died in traffic accidents, 212 were pedestrians, 153 were motorcyclists, and 25 others were bicyclists. The data reflects that lack of awareness among pedestrians how to cross roads and reckless driving by commercial and heavy vehicle drivers were the major causes of such a large number of deaths.
Buses, minibuses, coaches, trucks/trailers, dumper trucks, water tankers, and oil tankers were involved in fatal accidents of 343 people out of total 482, which means that drivers of heavy and commercial vehicles were responsible for 71 per cent deaths in road traffic accidents this year.
The data shows that 92 people died after being hit by trucks/trailers, 66 were knocked down by dumper trucks, water tankers, and six others by oil tankers. Buses, minibuses, and coaches were responsible for 179 deaths in accidents during the first nine months of this year. Thirty-five died after being hit by cars/jeeps, two by taxis, and 15 others by motorcycles.
The volume of registered vehicles in Karachi was almost 1.5 million. The number of vehicles had been increasing daily whereas the share of the heavy and commercial vehicles in the total volume was merely 3.5 per cent. Being a small component of the total volume, the heavy and commercial vehicles are responsible for 71 per cent fatalities in road traffic accidents.
The traffic police had launched several campaigns to control the negligent and reckless driving but the situation did not improve, the sources said and added that a provincial minister had ordered mandatory training for every driver so that awareness among drivers about traffic rules could be created.
Sources said drivers of commercial or public transport kept several driving licences issued from various cities. According to the sources, if a licence issued from Karachi was cancelled or seized the driver starts using the other one issued from any other city. They said that there was no coordination between cities to keep a track record of licence holders.
DIG Traffic Falak Khurshid said that he was trying to improve the traffic situation with the available strength of 2,500 traffic officials.
He said that there was no standard available internationally as to how many officials were required for a specific number of vehicles.
