Road safety appears to be a distant dream for the people in Lahore. Or how do you explain the 33,159 road accidents — in which 84 people lost their lives — that were reported from different parts of the city, over the past five months?

Data shared by Rescue 1122 reveals that the major causes of these accidents were speeding (30 percent), careless driving (25 percent), wrong turns (19.6 percent), U-turns (17 percent), pedestrian involvement (15 percent), dozing behind the wheel (11 percent) and tyre burst (1 percent).

Earlier, a 2018 report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) indicated that in Pakistan road accidents were the biggest cause of death of people between ages 15 and 29. The Rescue 1122 data seems to support this in showing that 58 percent of those involved in road accidents are bikers who fall in the age bracket of 11 to 30 years.

Similarly, 2015’s Global Status Report (GSR) on road safety identified, on the basis of data collected from 178 countries, that pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists were most prone to accidents.

Farooq Ahmed, the spokesperson of Rescue 1122, tells TNS that 14,985 people, including women and children, got serious injuries (in the abovementioned 33,159 road accidents). “Underage drivers are of special concern,” he adds. “At least 3,364 accidents occurred because of rash driving and one-wheeling stunts displayed by juveniles. Unfortunately, in most cases, lives were lost.”

Safety is of prime importance, not only to the road users but also to the engineers, planners and decision makers associated with the operations and development of transportation systems. There are a number of administrative and technical factors involved in managing traffic safety that need to be improved. For instance, roads need to be made safer by incorporating latest engineering techniques such as separating the grades and carriageways, building pedestrian tracks, installing traffic signals and marking road signs for the guidance of the road users.

Besides, it is believed that enforcement of traffic laws improves compliance and reduces road traffic fatalities, injuries and related socioeconomic costs. However, considering the number of challans issued by the Lahore Traffic Police on a daily basis, not many people seem to worry about having to pay a fine. “Over the past 10 months, 1.7 million challans have been issued for violations of traffic rules,” says Rana Arif, the spokesperson of City Traffic Police.

“The department ended up collecting Rs 740 million,” he reveals.

Rizwan Safdar, a sociologist, believes that the public attitude is an important factor in road accidents. “Many drivers exhibit a particular defiance towards [safety] regulations. They don’t feel any hesitation in violating the rules,” he says.

“Road rage has become part of our culture. We purposely try and intimidate the other drivers on the road. This gives us a false sense of security.”

Different data also show that the ratio of casualties is higher among the males (at 73 percent) who are generally of ages 15 and 44. This lot is their families’ bread earners. Therefore, it is imperative that road users be taught the rules. This can help to prevent them from landing life-threatening situations on the road. In this connection, the government is working on a project named Road Safety Pakistan (RSP) which is a collaboration between the Ministry of Communications and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Department of International Development of the United Kingdom. The RSP is expected to improve the safety of road network through a holistic set of five principal measures addressing road safety management systems, road-user behaviour, infrastructure improvements, safe roads and mobility (with focus on speed management) and post-crash response. The project is being implemented under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which aims to reduce fatalities and injuries caused by road accidents by the targetted 50 percent.

The WB and the WHO advocate a systemic approach towards road traffic safety that emphasises involvement at all levels of the road traffic system — from road providers and enforcers (vehicle manufacturers, road traffic planners, road safety engineers, police, educators, health professionals and insurers) to road users.

The writer is a staff   member. He can be reached at warraichshehryar@gmail.com