PESHAWAR: Young bikers reveling Eid cause far more road accidents than anything else, a study by the health department reveals.

The study conducted during the Eid holidays in 2016 revealed that 77 per cent of road accidents across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were caused by bikers, mostly by under-age motorcyclists driving recklessly or driving bikes unfit for roads.

The districts of Buner and Hangu top the chart with 100 per cent road accidents caused by reckless biking, followed by Torghar and Chitral with 98 per cent.

Study says most such accidents were reported in Buner, Hangu, Torghar, Chitral, Lakki Marwat

Lakki Marwat and Nowshera followed closely with 94 and 92 per cent road accidents caused by motorbikes, while Karak and Abbottabad trailed behind with 87 per cent and 84 per cent respectively. The districts of Tank and Swat followed suit with 82 per cent and 80 per cent respectively. Battagram also matched Swat with 80 percentage points in terms of road accidents caused by reckless motorcyclists on Eid days.

In the southern district of Dera Ismail Khan, 72 per cent of road accidents during Eid holidays were attributed to bikers, whereas Swabi and Bannu had 71 per cent ratio respectively.

Even in Kohistan, with less population, 61 per cent of road accidents were caused by motorcyclists on Eid days followed by Mansehra with 60 per cent and Malakand with 55 per cent.

Haripur trailed closely behind Malakand with 54 per cent road accidents caused by bikers, Lower Dir had 46 per cent, while Charsadda followed up with 45 per cent.

In Upper Dir, according to the official data, 42 per cent of the total road accidents on Eid days, were caused by bikers, whereas 37 per cent of the total road accidents in Shangla were attributed to rash biking.

Kohat had fewer road accidents involving reckless motor-biking with 30 percentage point. Peshawar followed with 22 per cent, while Mardan, KP’s second biggest district, had only 8 per cent of the road accidents caused by motorcyclists, the data revealed.

In all, 4,455 road accidents were reported during Eid holidays across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with Abbottabad topping the chart with 537 road accidents. Swat followed with 392 and Nowshera with 318 road accidents.

Dera Ismail Khan had 291 road accidents during Eid holidays and Malakand 251 road accidents. The southern districts of Lakki Marwat and Bannu had 249 and 238 road accidents respectively while Mansehra had 222 road accidents.

Lower Dir had 221 road accidents on Eid days, Kohat 202, Buner 173, Karak 169 and Kohistan 161. In Haripur, a total of 136 road accidents occurred during Eid holidays. Swabi had 133 road accidents, Charsadda 126 road accidents and Hangu 122 road accidents, according to the cases reported to government hospitals in KP.

According to the data, 102 cases of road accidents were reported to hospital in Chitral during Eid holidays, followed by Tank with 100 road accidents.

Upper Dir had 76 road accidents during Eid holidays in 2016, Battagram 75 and Mardan 61.

The northern district of Shangla had reported 51 road accidents during Eid days followed by Peshawar with 45. Torghar had four road accidents only. Most lives were claimed by road accidents during Eid holidays in Kohistan, which reported 19 such deaths, followed by seven by Swat and Kohat each.

The reckless biking by young Eid revelers also caused deaths, mostly in Swat and Dera Ismail Khan with four deaths each, showed the data.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2017