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KARACHI: Serious flaws in infrastructure, ineffective implementation of relevant laws and lack of awareness among people on Wednesday were cited for most of the 1,100 lives lost last year in road accidents in the city.
The data was shared by an official, who is running a key project to monitor different aspects of road accidents and advise measures to remove flaws, during an interactive discussion at the Urban Resource Centre.
It indicated a little drop in the number of fatal accidents in 2011 as compared to previous years after the authorities concerned took certain steps though there were several areas that still remained unaddressed.
'There is a National Transport Safety Board in the United States,' said Syed Ameer Hussain, the project manager of the Road Traffic Injury Research & Prevention Centre.
'We need such a body here in our country to regulate the entire system that ultimately aims at accidents prevention, infrastructure maintenance and development.'
The federal health ministry had established the Road Traffic Injury Research and Prevention Centre at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre in 2006. A related road injury surveillance projectwas devised and initiated in collaboration with the NED University of Engineering and Technology and supported by Indus Motors.
The centre has been involved in road traffic accident data collection and analysis since September 2007, suggesting every possible measure to the government bodies and people in general through different campaigns for removal of the flaws and to ensure minimum road accident vulnerability.
During his presentation, Mr Hussain gave the details of data his centre had been collecting for almost five years and how it had helped in different capacities to remove flaws in road and traffic system as well as creating awareness among people.
Risk factors
He referred to some key risk factors that increased the possibilities of the fatal road accidents manifold and also sounded cautioned on the total number of deaths due to road accidents recorded officially across the country.
'We have witnessed token system by private transport and non-implementation of bus stop rules also as reasons that caused road accidents.
Use of wrong ways, sharp curves on roads, little use of indicators by motorists and helmets by riders are a few other reasons that lead to fatalities,' he added.
Mr Hussain also shared a recent report of the Punjab government Rescue 1122 citing that road accidents claimed 40 per cent of the total 160,000 killings in Punjab.
'You can imagine the level of work, dedication and importance this area requires.
But, unfortunately, we don't find the urge that is required to handle this problem. It suggests that we don't consider deaths due to road accidents as dangerous as through other incidents,' he added.
According to the World Health Organisation, 1.3 million people died of road accidents every year in the world and the region, where Pakistan was situated, was on the top in terms of fatalities due to road accidents, he added.
'The WHO in collaboration with the United Nations has recently launched a programme called Decade of Action for Road Safety 20112020. And the fears are high that if we don't move with the required pace and measures to address the road accidents menace, the global number of fatalities could jump up to five million,' he said, apprehending that in that case, we would be among the major losers.
