LAHORE: Road accidents involving frequent traffic violations have plagued the provincial capital as an official report of the traffic police unveiled that road fatalities claimed 484 lives last year.

The report recently prepared by the Lahore traffic police shows 96,871 people - 81,076 men and 15,795 women - were injured in 92,784 road accidents reported on city roads in 2022. Similarly, 67,292 accidents involved motorbikes and 12,798 cars.

It says 479 people were allegedly murdered in the provincial capital in 2022 while the number of road accident fatalities was 484.

According to the report, 472 of the total injured persons got spinal injuries, 6,103 head wounds, 8,743 single fracture, 1,456 multiple fractures and 80,097 citizens got minor injuries in accidents.

Traffic police report claims 67,292 accidents involving bikes accounted for 74pc in 2022

The high number of accidents resulted in massive treatment cost incurred on the injured at the state-run hospitals annually.

However, no reliable official information involving the exact expenses incurred on the treatment of the injured is available.

The traffic police experts estimated the expenses in millions of rupees when they assessed the total number of the road accidents occurred annually in Lahore alone.

Most of these patients were shifted to the public sector teaching hospitals of the city with Mayo at the top, followed by Lahore General Hospital, Services, Jinnah and Sir Ganga Ram hospitals.

The city traffic police high-ups have shown serious concerns that most deaths and injuries to the people related to the motorbike accidents.

Lahore Chief Traffic Officer (CTO) retired Capt Mustansar Feroze told Dawn that accidents involving motorbikes accounted for 74 per cent.

While investigating the contributing factors, he said, most deaths associated with the head and neck injuries.

The deaths and critical injuries increased when the people, especially youngsters, abandoned the use of helmets.

“Carelessness, speeding and wrong turns were the other leading causes of deaths and maximum number of injuries”, the CTO said.

Mr Feroze said the risk of death as a result of a road injury could be prevented by following the traffic rules in letter and spirit.

The report also shared data of first five months of 2023. It stated that the city witnessed a slight decrease in the number of deaths in road accidents as compared to those murdered. According to it, 142 people died in road accidents while those murdered were 182.

The decrease has been attributed to the recent campaigns of the city traffic police to ensure use of helmets and implementation of the traffic rules.

Similarly, 37,038 people - 30,555 men and 6,483 women- were injured in the total 36,057 road accidents occurred in Lahore in the first five months of 2023.

Of them, 167 got spinal injuries, 2,139 head injuries, 3,300 single fracture, 482 multiple fractures and 30,950 suffered minor wounds.

The report said 20,887 of them were drivers, 6,415 pedestrians, 9,736 passengers and 1,722 were the underage drivers.

Out of the total injured people, 15,605 were reported ‘still unstable’ due to the nature of the deep wounds they got in the accidents after treatment at hospitals.

About the involvement of various categories of vehicles, the report says most of the accidents occurred while driving bikes followed by cars.

The accidents involved 26,696 bikes, 4,670 cars, 2,233 autorickshaws, 514 trucks, 208 buses, 539 vans, 223 tractor-trolleys and 1,189 other vehicles.

The report also discussed the age group-wise data, stating most people who got road accident injuries fall in 21-30 age group followed by 6,878 in 11-20 and 4,717 people of 41-50 age.

Similarly, 1,845 people of above 60 and 1,475 children between 1-10 age also got injured in the road accidents occurred in first five months of this year.

Published in Dawn, June 3rd, 2023