ISLAMABAD, June 19: Road traffic injury has become a leading cause of death in Pakistan with 15 deaths per 1,000 persons per year.

According to the National Action Plan for Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases and Health Promotion in Pakistan, speeding has been identified as the leading cause of road traffic crashes (RTCs) in Pakistan while other casual factors include rash driving, long duty hours for drivers, absence or inappropriate display of diversion signs and deficiencies in the policing system.

Health Minister Mohammad Nasir Khan, who had lost his father in a road accident, has repeatedly warned that by the year 2012, road accidents would be the number one killer in Pakistan.

Around 1.4 million RTCs were reported in Pakistan in 1999, of which 7,000 resulted in fatalities.

Globally, with an estimated annual occurrence of 10 million worldwide, RTCs are the leading cause of death in adolescents and young adults.

The national plan of action, however, said that the health education department of the government did not have any allocation for RTC prevention. Though several private sector initiative are contributing to road safety, still road safety needs to be tabled prominently on the health education and health promotion agenda.

It said, majority of fatalities in RTCs in Pakistan were caused by buses and trucks - a situation which raises questions about the competency of truck and bus drivers, their awareness and compliance with road traffic regulations and the incentive structure that encourages them to speed up their vehicles.

It emphasized the need for adequate training and subsequent licensing through a transparent mechanism.

The plan also highlighted the need for improving the existing training and licensing system but said that most driver training schools were in the private sector.

In Rawalpindi, there is only one driver training school in the public sector with a capacity to train 23 students per month, but 100 to 150 driving licenses are issued within a month in the same city. Clearly, a major contribution is made by private sector schools, of which there are around 70 in the city of Rawalpindi alone.

A road traffic injury study revealed that the police usually under-reported 18 per cent of the road traffic fatalities and 72 per cent of the road traffic injuries. This implies that police data collection needs to be improved and strengthened by verification through other supplementary sources of information.

Facility-based data shows that RTCs contribute significantly to workload in hospitals. Road traffic crashes are the commonest cause of head trauma. Mild, moderate and severe head injury has been observed in 52 per cent, 30 per cent and 18 per cent of patients respectively, in different neurosurgical centres over a per period of four years.

The action plan said that a high proportion of RTCs in Pakistan occurred on major inter-city trunk roads. Studies conducted in Punjab have revealed that 27 per cent of the total fatal crashes occurred on N-5 (Lahore-Peshawar Grand Trunk Road). Pakistan's modest network of highways includes 17 major highways with a total mileage of 8,845 kilometres spanning four provinces.