KARACHI: Five fatal accidents occur every two days on roads in the city, according to statistics for the first four months of 2016 shared by DIG Traffic Dr Amir Shaikh with the media on Tuesday.

About the overall number of accidents during the past three years, the DIG said: “Very little improvement has occurred so far as 30,000 accidents were reported every year. This year, so far, has not proved to be much different.”

Fatalistic attitude of people about accidents along with reaching a compromise with perpetrators hushed up 90 per cent of the cases, he added.

Quoting fatal accidents on the Superhighway, he said overspeeding was one of the recurring problems that no one paid heed to “despite multiple warnings”.

Three major factors contributing to road accidents, according to DIG Shaikh, are unskilled drivers driving without a valid licence, overspeeding and overtaking without indication.

According to the data, around 60 per cent of drivers do not have a valid driving licence that remains a big problem in managing the city’s traffic and “reckless drivers”. At various traffic intersections in the city, 3,200 traffic policemen are deputed to regulate movement of 3.79 million vehicles whose number increases by 908 per day according to the report that quoted the vehicular data compiled by the excise and taxation department.

On an average, every traffic policeman has to manage traffic of 1,031 vehicles on city roads. Of these vehicles, motorcycles make up to around 54.87 per cent traffic on roads, followed by cars (32.6 per cent), rickshaws (5.5 per cent) and the remaining traffic.

The Superhighway, the National Highway, Korangi Industrial Area, main Korangi Road, Sharea Faisal and Mauripur Road are identified as the “black spots” where most of the accidents occurred in the past four months. “Drivers are at fault in majority of these cases,” DIG Shaikh added.

At the same time, 40 per cent of the 1,200 patients received at the emergency ward of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre got injured in traffic accidents, according to the head of emergency department, Dr Seemin Jamali. “People come with head and leg injuries especially if it’s a motorbike accident,” she said. Besides, she added, they included jaywalkers and motorists who overspeed on roads.

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2016