During this month only in one road accident near Malir Karachi, 60 precious lives of innocent children, women and men were burnt away and only this single incident was sufficient to open the eyes of the Transport Authorities but it seems that nothing has been changed. The accidents, casualties and injuries is every day incidents across the country and roads are changed into the traps of deaths. Our country has a serious road accident problem wherein the fatality rate appears to be higher than in many other developing countries, i.e. fourth highest among 29 countries.
This shows that no any road is safe and vulnerable to any mishaps or accidents at any time to an extent that road accidents claim more lives or limbs every year than any other natural or unnatural cause. One estimate confirms that the reported deaths on roads in Pakistan are estimated to be above 50,000 a year. It seems that laws, rules and regulations and road safety measures are not being implemented in its true letter & spirit to safeguard the precious lives of thousands of people and the vague and outdated legislation, non-compliance on the part of drivers and owners of vehicles and poor monitoring by the authorities concerned.
The major contributing factors & main causes in the increase of the everyday vehicles and road accidents include the broken and narrow roads, old vehicles, inexperienced drivers, poor safety measures, excessive speed, overloaded vehicles, unfit vehicle, flash lights, vehicles without retro-reflectors, illuminating stripes, drivers without license, children driving, vehicles without registrations, use of mobile phones during riding, use of intoxicants, loaded vehicles left at road sides, or faulty vehicles standing at main roads at night times, inside CNG calendar, poor street lighting were found to be the major contributory factors. It is also observed that majority of bi-cycles, motor cycles, donkey, camel, bull carts, tractors, trolleys, fully loaded trucks with wheat husk or gross or wood, chingchi Rickshaws, oil tankers, Vans, Jeeps, Datsuns, Suzuki pickups, trailers, & buses do not have safety measures as per laws and back lights on or any kind of the retro-reflectors such as retro-reflectors, pedestrian hanging reflectors or retro reflector number plates of stripes on the back side of the vehicles to increases the visibility of riders during the night and thus increase the probability or chances of any crashes or sudden accidents.
These incidents can be reduced by implementing the laws, rules and regulations and needed to be implemented as required to safeguard the lives of the thousands precious lives.