KARACHI, Nov 11: A number of dangerous and substandard speed-breakers on the city’s main roads are causing accidents, but the city government and Town administrations concerned appear to be the least interested in getting them removed despite numerous complaints made by concerned citizens.

Likewise, sodium lights of very high power have been installed at various places, especially at the ends of bridges. These lights are so blinding that they are causing accidents.

There are in all 283 speed-breakers on 32 major roads of the city. Of these, about 170 are dangerous and substandard, according to a survey conducted, in March, by the city government’s transport and communication department with the cooperation of the police department.

The department had recommended to the city government and Town administrations for immediate removal of these dangerous speed-breakers, but eight months have elapsed but nothing has been done in this regard. So there is no check on accidents caused due to dangerous speed-breakers. Such accidents have been on the rise. One dangerous speed-breaker recently claimed the life of a newsman when his motorcycle hit such a speed-breaker in Korangi area.

At least four dangerous speed-breakers have recently been built near the Landi Kotal bridge which divides Federal B- Area and North Nazimabad. This speed-breaker has caused a number of accidents.

Most accidents are taking place after sunset as the civic agencies concerned, which are supposed to ensure proper and adequate street-lighting arrangements, have adopted a novel idea of making lighting arrangements, particularly near bridges.

The electrical and mechanical departments of different Town administrations, instead of energizing electric poles’ lights by replacing the electricity poles’ fused mercury bulbs and their faulty chokes, have placed two high poles each having four 1,000-watts sodium bulbs, on either side at some bridges. The glare of these lights are so intense that they disturb the vision of motorcyclists and other motorists. Such lights are the main cause of accidents at night.

Such unpleasant lights are at a number of bridges, including Tin Hatti bridge, Gulshan-i-Iqbal’s bridge that bifurcates Gulshan-i-Iqbal and the Landi Kotal bridge near F. B-Area’s Tahir Villa roundabout where a accident took place on Saturday due to a dangerous speed-breaker. There are four extraordinarily high speed-breakers, two each on the road that leads to North Nazimabad and F. B-Area.

Only on Saturday, occupants of a yellow cab while proceeding towards North Nazimabad suffered head injuries when their vehicle hit one of the four dangerously built speed-breakers, which have recently been built near F. B- Area’s Tahir Villa roundabout. Two girls, whose heads banged against the vehicle’s roof after their cab jumped off the speed-breaker which is about two feet high from the road’s surface, were seen crying due to the severity of their pain.

Another dangerous speed-breaker has been there on Shahrah-i-Quaideen, near the Quaid’s mausoleum’s main entrance, for more than a year. Only a few days ago a woman, travelling in a rickshaw, was badly injured when her head struck against the iron bar of the rickshaw’s roof after the vehicle jumped over the speed- breaker.