ISLAMABAD: A petition seeking the establishment of an independent national road and transport safety commission has been admitted for hearing by the Supreme Court.

Moved by Advocate Raheel Kamran Sheikh, who is a member of the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC), the

petition regrets that Pakistan has become the fourth most dangerous country in terms of road accident mortality in the developing world, with over 2,500 deaths occurring on the roads in 2016 alone.

According to the official website of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), a total of 8,359 road accidents took place in the country during 2013-14, of which 3,500 resulted in the death of 4,348 people and left 9,777 injured.

In 2012, 35,671 cases of road accidents were reported in Karachi alone, leading to 27,195 minor injuries, 7,297 serious injuries and 1,179 deaths, the petition regretted.

The petition was earlier returned by the Supreme Court registrar office on the grounds that the petitioner had bypassed the appropriate forum available under the law for relief in the matter.

Number of fatalities in accidents is three times more than terrorism-related deaths

But when Advocate Sheikh challenged the registrar’s decision in the Supreme Court, the petition was cleared for hearing by Justice Gulzar Ahmed in his chambers last week.

Citing the Global Status Report on Road Safety 2015, published by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the petition asserted that road accidents in Pakistan were a leading cause of death among young people aged 15 to 29.

The number of deaths attributable to road accidents in Pakistan was almost thrice the number of terrorism-related fatalities, which mostly occurred due to appalling road conditions, a lack of awareness about and non-observance of traffic rules and road safety procedures, as well as inadequate checks on vehicle fitness and drivers’ proficiency, the petition said.

It is estimated that 10 to 15 per cent of the country’s total population suffers from some form of disability. Apart from birth defects, the petition maintained, most of these were directly attributable to road accidents.

“Such accidents can be prevented and lives can be saved by enacting and implementing safety laws and by designing safer infrastructure, incorporating road safety features into land use and transport planning, improving the safety features of vehicles and improving post-crash care for victims,” the petition highlighted.

According to the WHO report on road safety, there was a lack of statistical accuracy that stemmed from a lack of integrated death registration data for traffic accidents in Pakistan. This, the petition claimed, essentially meant that at the provincial and national levels, the country was not even keeping track of the trends and projections in this area, the absence of which made developing a national road safety strategy or a fatality reduction target all the more difficult.

The petitioner sought a directive for the National Highway Authority to implement safety measures regarding construction and maintenance of national highways and roads by planning, promoting, organising and implementing programmes for construction, development, operation, repairs and maintenance of the national highways and strategic roads.

The authority, the petition pleaded, should also make roads safer by incorporating engineering improvements such as the separation of carriageways, installation of signs, signals and road markings to guide road users.

Similarly, all provincial government should improve the conditions of roads and highways within the cities according to the international standards.

The Supreme Court should also order, the petition argued, enhancement of the capacity of motor vehicle examiners to perform their statutory functions and devising a system of uniform standards and procedures for inspection, certification and monitoring of vehicles for all provinces.

Published in Dawn February 6th, 2017