ISLAMABAD: The National Highway Authority (NHA) on Wednesday informed the National Assembly that road accidents on the G. T. Road had decreased when compared with the Motorway.

In response to a question from PML-N, MNA, Begum Tahira Bukhari about increasing road accidents, the National Highway Authority said the motorway had registered 375 fatal and non-fatal accidents whereas the G. T. Road 323 in 2016.

The NHA explained in a written reply that non-fatal accidents on the G.T. Road had decreased by nearly 40pc in 2016 when compared with the 2015.

According to NHA, 125 non-fatal accidents happened in 2016, compared with 208 in 2015. On the other hand, non-fatal accidents on Motorway increased from 75pc in 2014, to 344 the next year, but declined to 261 in 2016.

Similarly, some 315 fatal road accidents happened on the G. T. Road in 2015, which decreased to 198 the next year. However, over the last three years, there has been a rise in fatal accidents on the Motorway from 40 in the year 2014, to 101 in 2015 and 114 in the year 2016.

The members were informed that 89 accidents on the GT Road in 2016 involved public transport vehicles. Careless driving, according to the NHA, remained the major reason on the G.T. Road in the last two years.

To prevent such accidents, the traffic police had issued more than 1.5 million traffic violation tickets in the year 2016. More than 700, 000 tickets were issued for traffic violations the previous year.

Likewise, the NHA analysed that in 2015, the major cause of accidents on the Motorway was again careless driving.

Compared with 2015, when Motorway police issued more than 280,000 tickets, it issued more than 400,000 tickets in 2016.

The House was informed that day and night speed checking cameras had also been installed in the last two years to prevent accidents caused by speeding, which was also a major cause for fatal and non-fatal accidents on the Motorway.

Other measures such as introduction of education of drivers of both heavy and light vehicles on road safety were expected to bring down accidents in the future, the NHA said.

Published in Dawn, April 13th, 2017