December 8, 2005

According to the data compiled by the Transport and Communication Department, City District Government Karachi (CDGK), more than 12,000 persons lost their lives in over 21,932 reported traffic accidents in the city from 1987 to 2004. Half of these accidents were fatal. Most of the drivers fell within the age group of 21-45 years, writes Syed Raza Hasan

In March 2004, the Sindh government declared the year 2005 as the ‘year of road safety’. The transport department was asked to prepare a comprehensive plan, suggesting measures to contain road accidents and to improve the traffic management system.

The announcement was also followed by a series of meetings by traffic authorities on traffic management and road safety programmes. But as expected, the declarations with hollow promises like the previous ones, failed to provide any relief to hapless citizens.

In fact, according to the traffic police statistics, a 1.6 per cent rise has been noticed in the fatality rate in road accidents during the past nine months, as compared with the corresponding span of the previous year.

The data shows that 859 traffic accidents took place during the last nine months when compared with the 868 mishaps that occurred during last year’s corresponding period. Though there is a slight decline in the number of accidents, the fatality rate is higher than the previous year.

Four hundred and forty one fatal accidents occurred in the 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 were hurt during the corresponding period of the previous year. Among the 482 people who died in the traffic accidents, 212 were pedestrians, 153 were motorcyclists, and 25 were bicyclists.

A road accident takes place due to a variety of reasons such as reckless driving, poor condition of roads, lack of road sense among pedestrians and drivers, and above all, violation and ignorance of traffic rules. However, an analysis of road accidents shows that heavy vehicles have a major share in road accidents.

According to the traffic police data, buses, minibuses, coaches, trucks/trailers, dumper trucks, water tankers, and oil tankers were involved in fatal accidents of 343 people out of the total 482 deaths during the past nine months. Ninety-two people were killed after being hit by trucks/trailers, 66 were knocked down by dumper trucks, water tankers, and six by oil tankers. Buses, minibuses, and coaches were responsible for 179 deaths during the first nine months of this year. Thirty-five died after being hit by cars/jeeps, two by taxis, and 15 by motorcycles.

Statistics prove that drivers of heavy vehicles and public transport were responsible for 71 per cent deaths in road accidents this year. One of the main culprits are minibuses, also known as ‘yellow devils’. Since 1986, a large number of people have been killed in accidents by mini-buses. It was the riots which ensued after the death of Bushra Zaidi, a student of Sir Syed College, by a speeding minibus in Nazimabad, which forced the government to stop issuing new permits for buses. Recently, Madiha Sami, a student of Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology, was killed when a recklessly driven bus reportedly went out of control and hit her along with two other students.

It’s common knowledge that the transport mafia also enjoys the backing of some political forces, which help them escape from accountability at all levels, despite brazen violation of traffic rules and murder of innocent people. Past governments have seriously considered doing away with minibuses once and for all and replacing them with large-sized buses. But such plans remained on paper only in the absence of a political will and commitment.

Going by the record, Karachi has 14,854 intra-city buses, all owned by private operators, 513 intercity buses, 13,613 taxis, 23,337 rickshaws, in addition to 8,773 minibuses.

According to the data compiled by the Transport and Communication Department, City District Government Karachi (CDGK), more than 12,000 persons lost their lives in over 21,932 reported traffic accidents in the city from 1987 to 2004. Half of these accidents were fatal. Most of the drivers fell within the age group of 21-45 years. Drivers of public transport, goods carriers and commercial vehicles were illiterate and didn’t have any basic training in driving.

Another related problem, which has failed so far in getting due attention, is drunk driving. Data collected from different sources reveals that the phenomenon is on the rise in the city.

Dr Syed Ali Wasif, a senior psychiatrist with the Pakistan Association of Mental Health says that drug abuse is rampant among the drivers of commercial vehicles, a major factor contributing to a higher accident rate.”Fifteen to 25 per cent of night accident cases involve drunk drivers. Their intoxicated state is easily identified through a blood test which shows a significant high concentration of alcohol,” said Dr Wasif.
 

Long road to justice

On August 22, Mohammad Naeem, 32, a computer engineer, kissed his four-month-old daughter and older son before he left his house in Mughalpura, Lahore, for his office on Ferozepur Road. Little did he know it was the last time he would be kissing his children goodbye. On that fateful morning, his motorcycle was hit by a speeding bus,and minutes later he breathed his last in a hospital, succumbing to his injuries, only a few blocks away from home. The bus driver managed to escape. Residents then took to streets in protest. They blocked traffic on the road for four hours and ransacked the bus in question and four other vehicles. End of another road death scene? Well, pretty much. The police registered a case. The bus company sent its lawyer to the police station, who initially tried to get the case settled by offering a few thousand rupees to Naeem’s family. Upon refusal for an out-of-court settlement, the lawyer left the police station, saying that he would see the family in court. Within 10 days, says Hafeez Ahmad, the brother-in-law of the deceased, the driver was bailed out, and the impounded bus was ordered to be released to the transport company. “That was pretty much it,” says Hafeez, who since then has been pursuing the case, without getting anywhere. He says that pursuing the case, he is made to feel that he and the family were the accused and not the driver or his backers, the transport company. Hafeez says the company’s lawyer at the police station was the only man who approached them for a compensation, with the least settlement warranted under the law. “Now we know that neither the police nor the courts take an accident case seriously.” What will eventually come out of the long-drawn case after it reaches the court is not much besides a six-month or so in jail for the driver, he says. Hafeez visited the Mughalpura police station around 10 times to push the case forward. Finally, some days ago, the investigator told him that the file had been sent to the investigation branch at the police headquarters at Qila Gujjar Singh. “I went to the headquarters twice. On both occasions, I was told that the man concerned was not on his seat. I do not even know if the file is in the headquarters.” Hafeez says he then visited the concerned court in the cantonment. He asked the court officials about the case, who told him that it had not been submitted to the court so far. Meanwhile, the family continues to endure the agony in pursuance of justice for Naeem’s widow and his two little children. —Asif Shahzad

 

Public transport in Lahore

The death of 19-year-old Yasir Aijaz, a student of Islamia College, Civil Lines, in a road accident while crossing the road on November 19, wasn't a rare event: the public transport of Lahore has earned considerable notoriety in recent times for callous and incompetent driving. The exact count of the number of people killed is unavailable but over one hundred people are believed to have been killed in traffic accidents involving public transport in the last one year; thousands have been injured. Yasir's death angered his fellow students and they came out furiously on the roads and went on a spree of torching buses and burnt five vehicles. Such reaction, too, has become a familiar sight in the city. However, nothing substantial happens. The anger subsides after a while and life returns to its routine till the next casualty and the next demonstration. This has become predictable in a way. A city of under half a million in the fifties, with at least eight million residents now, can hardly escape such incidents. Particularly when owners of public transport are influential people and where police have a corrupt stake in supervising the system and where roads are bursting with an ever increasing number of vehicles of all varieties -–– privately owned cars, wagons that pack passengers like sardines and buses that compete for passengers in a no holds barred manner. The public transport sector has been a terribly neglected area of city life for years. Originally, the city had government transport –– Omni Bus Service -–– that functioned smoothly and provided a badly needed facility to citizens. But it went out of business in the seventies due to corruption in the government owned company and as it could not cope with the mounting pressure of transportation requirements of an exploding population. The transport needs of the residents have admittedly been attended to by the present administration but traffic has meanwhile become unmanageable and roads are mostly clogged, particularly on the main arteries of the city. Bus and wagon drivers have no patience as they want to run as any sorties during a day as possible for financial reasons, and often because many drivers are ill trained for their job. Police have a lax attitude issuing licenses to so called professional drivers. But the problem can still be resolved. What is needed is stern administration. When deadly accidents occur and citizens burn vehicles, the government is expected to take action against transporters but that is never done. The result is the same tragedy rears its head again and again. What needs to be done is strict vigilance over public transport, management by police untainted by corruption, timely action against erring companies and individuals and by dealing with all components of the public transport system on an equitable basis. But that is a tall order that is easier said than achieved and a political government with many of its members involved in money-making with a vengeance is hardly in a position to adopt such a policy. The provincial government seems to be realizing the dangerous dimensions of the situation and waking up to its responsibilities. It has allocated Rs100 million to provide buses to colleges so that students, who have had more victims in traffic tragedies than any other segment and, because of their strength to protest, have caused many crises, have safe transport. Hopefully, the measure would help reduce unfortunate accidents on city roads. But the effort is late in the day and would take some time to materialize. It is not without risks either because an addition of hundreds of vehicles on the city roads on a regular basis due to leasing, would create its own problems.— Zafar Samdani

 

A couple narrate an ordeal

A couple lost their two children in a road accident, on the third day of Eid this year. The accident was not the result of rash driving but rather the consequence of the negligence of CDGK authorities engaged in the reconstruction of Abul Hassan Isphani Road. The children were killed while their parents suffered injuries when a taxi plunged into a deep open storm water drain whose protective walls had been demolished during road reconstruction. Recalling the traumatic night, the mother, a senior political worker says that the family was intending to visit some relatives in North Karachi and hired a cab for the purpose. Her husband, Ghulam Qadir, seated in the front with the driver while she along with 14-year-old Batool and 11-year-old Shayan sat in the back. After covering some distance, the car suddenly fell in the drain. "I was shocked and confused as to what was happening. I held my children tightly and asked them to recite some Quranic surahs. We sank deep as sewage was coming into our mouths. I lost the grip of my children and after a while became unconscious," says the grief-stricken mother. When she regained consciousness she saw some men pulling her out of the drain. And, the first thing she asked was the whereabouts of her children. A person told her that the children had been taken to the hospital along with her husband. She went there and found her husband in stable condition but the couple had lost their children in the accident. Voicing his frustration over the accident, Ghulam Qadir, the father, said that the road work had been delayed for 11 months as the concerned contractor was engaged in several other projects. Following the accident, the area SHO came to his house and told him that he had arrested the driver and was also trying to trace the cab owner. "The driver is not responsible for the tragedy. The poor man was on the road in a rented cab to get bread and butter for his family. If someone is responsible for my children's death it is the project engineer and the contractor. On the instructions of the governor, a committee was set up to probe into the accident, but ironically, the concerned engineer and the contractor were also made members of that committee. How can one expect justice in such a corrupted system," Qadir remarked. — S.R.H

 

DIG traffic explains

“Considering the road conditions in the city and the number of vehicles running on the roads, the ratio of road accidents is not high. The city is short of better road facilities as well as manpower to regulate the traffic. Of the four million vehicles in the country, 1.45 million are found on the roads in Karachi, including a fleet of 500,000 motorcycles. Whereas the manpower required to regulate this traffic is limited to only 2,600 policemen,” says DIG Traffic Falak Khursheed. About the working of traffic police, the DIG pointed out that the traffic police worked in two shifts for four traffic zones of the city with 1,300 men in each shift. Ideally, he said, 5,665 traffic policemen were required to meet the growing challenge of a well-managed traffic flow. When asked as to how road accidents can be reduced, he said that there was a need to expedite the legal process to decide road traffic accident cases pending in courts on priority basis. Also, awareness should be created about road safety especially at school level. For the drivers of heavy vehicles, the DIG said that the transport department was planning to open training schools with a four-week traffic course which would be mandatory for commercial drivers. –— S.R.H

 

Black spots

According to the Transport and Communication Department, CDGK, half of the 21,932 accidents reported in the city from 1987 to 2004 involved pedestrians. The study points to the fact that if the CDGK and traffic authorities are sincere with human lives they have to give due attention to pedestrians' rights. The present situation is dismal, to say the least. A case in point is the recently inaugurated FTC and Shaheed-e-Millat flyovers. Prior to the construction of these flyovers, pedestrians used to cross the main thoroughfare from the traffic signals located in front of Masjid-e-Roomi and at Nursery traffic intersection. But, after their construction people have no option but to cross the road at these points amidst speeding vehicles as city planners had given no forethought to the issue which needs immediate attention. Many hit-and-run accidents, especially at night, have taken place here along this stretch of Shara-e-Faisal from Chanesar traffic signal located just before Nursery and up to the naval residential area before Hotel Regent Plaza. Though the city government has issued orders for an overhead pedestrian bridge near FTC, no work has started yet. Nagan Chowrangi is another critical accident point in the city. It has probably witnessed the biggest number of fatal accidents involving motorcyclists and pillion-riders. There was a steep rise in fatal accidents when the chowrangi was replaced with traffic signals. Technically, Nagan Chowrangi intersection has become a confusing point for drivers as no less than five or six roads get connected here at this spot, which has also seen the largest number of vehicles being burnt by angry protesters following accidents. The Five Star Traffic intersection in North Nazimabad has also become a deadly spot in terms of fatalities in road accidents.Followed by Mauripur Road and ICI Bridge. Recently, four trucks were set on fire by enraged people in Liaquatabad following two consecutive accidents at Dakhana bus-stop and Liaquatabad No.10, claiming two lives and injuring three others. —— S.R.H

 

Vehicle fitness

The volume of registered vehicles in Karachi is almost 1.45 million. The number of vehicles has been increasing on daily basis whereas the share of heavy and commercial vehicles in total registered vehicles is merely 3.5 per cent. Despite being a small component, heavy and commercial vehicles have been responsible for 71 per cent fatalities in accidents. The owners of commercial vehicles are required to get fitness certificates every six months from the Motor Vehicle Inspection (MVI) branch of the Sindh Police for Traffic and Highways, Saeedabad. The certificates are supposed to be issued after an examination of vehicles under section 39(1) and 40(2) of the West Pakistan Motor Vehicle Ordinance 1965. It's an open secret that public transport operators, allegedly in connivance with MVI staff, get fitness certificates for their buses, minibuses and coaches which are in poor condition. A senior police officer requesting anonymity claimed that many of the transport operators did not need to get their vehicles physically checked and go through legal formalities as rates were fixed for issuance/renewal of fitness certificates. The legal fee for the renewal of a fitness certificate for a bus is Rs50 but if one pays Rs800, a fitness certificate is issued without physical examination. However, dumper trucks have been exempted from such formalities. "Instead of sending our buses to the MVI branch, we send a person with vehicle registration books to the office. The work is done if the money is paid in advance. This practice is called open fitness," says a transporter preferring to remain anonymous. Analysts believe that unless a stringent corruption-free system of fitness certifications is enforced, the number of fatal road accidents would only increase. —S.R.H

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