In Pakistan, road accidents claim over 10,000 lives and leave over 50,000 maimed or injured every year. A large number of those injured are rendered disabled or, at worst, bedridden.

According to traffic police officers, most accidents are caused by driver error or traffic violations, such as running traffic lights, changing lanes irregularly or speeding.

Over recent months, traffic violations have spiked in the capital. Every passing year sees an increase in the number of accidents, but this time around, police have handed out nearly four times as many tickets as the previous year.

But police officers feel that newly introduced stricter traffic laws, such as the mandatory seatbelt regulation for both front-seat passengers, actually save lives.

In addition, Islamabad Traffic Police are, for the first time in Pakistan, issuing traffic tickets to drivers that are responsible for accidents.

In addition, a new five-page accident report booklet has been introduced to record the particulars of each accident: the police station of jurisdiction and the details of each incident. The accident report has four copies for each report: a red leaf is given to guilty person, the green leaf to the victim, a yellow leaf is sent to area police station, a white leaf is kept for traffic police record and a blue leaf is sent to the courts.

Most accidents are divided into two categories – a collision between vehicles or a pedestrian being run over by a vehicle - and the main reason behind the accidents was either negligence from the part of the driver or the pedestrians.

Traffic audit

Last week, Islamabad Traffic Police also conducted an audit to try and identify the cause which claim lives and affected families.

The police audit covered road accidents in the month of June and examined 200 accidents – 10 of which proved fatal – in which 10 people were killed and 101 injured.

The report suggests that Fazal-i-Haq Road in Blue Area is the most prone to accidents as 14 incidents took place there during the last month.

Twelve accidents took place on Kashmir Highway, followed by seven each at Expressway and I.J. Principal Road, five each at Margalla Road, Neelam Road, G-9/4, four each at Kashmir Chowk and Murree Road and three each at Expressway-Sohan, Bhitai Road F-7/2 and Khayaban Chowk.

The Islamabad Expressway between Faizabad and Kural used to be quite prone to accidents, but the number of crashes there has decreased with the construction of overhead pedestrian bridges and the fencing of the road divider.

In the 200 road accidents, Corollas were involved in 66 accidents followed by motorcycles with 51. Similarly, Honda Civic and City cars were involved in 36 accidents followed by Mehran 26, Cultus 17, Hiace (wagon) 16, Dumper 14, Alto 12, Truck 10 and six accidents involved buses.

The audit report also suggested that the time vulnerable for accidents were 0000 to 0800hrs and 2000 to 0000hrs as 24 and 23 accidents took place at that time respectively.

Likewise, 21 and 20 accidents took place during the time period of 1300 to 1400hrs and 1700 to 1800hrs, followed by 15 accidents at 0800 to 0900hrs, 14 at 1600 to 1700hrs, 12 each at 1100 to 1200hrs and 1000 and 1100hrs, 11 each at 1200 to 1300hrs and 1500 to 1600hrs, 10 at 0900 to 1000hrs nine each at

1900 to 2000hrs and 1800 to 1900hrs and eight at 1400 to 1500hrs.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2014