ISLAMABAD, Oct 23: Communi-cations and Railways Minister Lt- Gen (Rtd) Javed Ashraf has urged for strict enforcement of traffic rules, through creating awareness among the road-users to ensure their safety.

He was speaking at a seminar on “Safety of vulnerable road users” here on Tuesday.

The seminar was organized by National Highways and Motorway Police (NH&MP) in collaboration with the Association of Road Users of Pakistan, which aims to ensure road safety rules by educating the commuters.

The inaugural session was addressed by NH&MP inspector- general Asad Jahangir Khan, Sadiq Swati, and Asif J. Khawaja.

The minister said that the government was actively engaged in maintaining discipline and the enforcing relevant laws in different departments, including NH&MP, in order to ensure the safety of the road users and reduce the rate of fatal accidents.

“The chaos on our roads is an irritant that we suffer everyday”, he remarked. He said he was deeply disturbed to witness the state of indiscipline on the roads.

The minister attributed poor awareness about traffic rules, conditions of roads and poor enforcement of these rules as the main reasons for this indiscipline and chaos.

Mr Ashraf regretted that lack of education among the drivers and road-users were causing fatal accidents and called for promoting awareness campaigns about the traffic rules to reduce the accident rates.

The minister said the government had constructed overhead bridges on the roads in different cities, to facilitate the pedestrians, but regretted that instead of using them, people were ignoring the facility.

He maintained that the youngsters often played tricks with their motorcycles on main roads, thus ignoring the risk to their lives.

He alleged that traffic police instead of arresting the violators, watched them as mere spectators.

He urged the traffic police to ensure the enforcement of traffic rules and book all those, violating the rule.

The minister lauded the efforts of motorway police for the enforcement of traffic rules on the motorways.

He also appreciated the organizers for arranging seminar on road safety and assured them that the recommendations of the seminar would be incorporated in the formulation of road safety policy.

Asad Jahangir Khan urged the road users to respect the traffic rules and avoid violating them for their own safety. He said his department had taken measures for the enforcement of traffic rules on national highways and motorways for the safety of the passengers and road users.

Siddiq Swati on the occasion stressed the need for creating awareness among the road users about the importance of the traffic rules for their own safety.

Road safety experts and intellectuals, including Bushra Rehman, Rakshanda Naveed, Laiq Ahmed, Prof Pareshaan Khatak, Zulfiqar Ali Qureshi, Safdar Hamayun Khan and Afzal Ali Shighari would present their papers on various subjects of road safety, in the next sessions of the seminar.—APP