TAXILA: Rescue 1122 organised an awareness walk and a camp in Attock on Saturday in connection with the International Road Safety Week.

Carrying placards and banners inscribed with different safety slogans and messages, a large number of Rescue 1122 workers, volunteers and citizens participated in the walk.

Addressing the participants, speakers said the week was being celebrated with an aim to reduce the rate of accidents by creating awareness. They said road safety had become a global concern due to the alarming increase in traffic crashes and the cumulative toll of road traffic injuries and casualties.

The speakers said road safety in the global plan included road safety management, safer roads and mobility, safer vehicles, safer road users, and post-crash response.

The speakers said WHO in collaboration with Rescue 1122 and other organisations reviewed the contributing factors of road traffic crashes and found that an accident was occurring every 1.6 minutes and Rescue 1122 alone was managing an average 970 road traffic crashes daily in Punjab.

District emergency officer Dr Mohammad Ishfaq Mian said the sixth Global Road Safety Week was being observed from May 17 across the province by the emergency services with new global plan for the decade of action for road safety 2021-2030 in accordance with a UN resolution.

He said each year approximately 1.3 million people died worldwide and over 54pc of deaths were associated with motorcyclists, cyclists and pedestrians.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2021