Islamabad Traffic Police (ITP) will take stern action to curb racing by motorists and motorcyclists, who play dangerous stunts on various roads of the city, the Senior Superintendent of Police (Traffic) Dr Sultan Azam Temuri told APP on Sunday.
"The police teams are especially deputed on every Friday and Sunday to stop such life-threatening practices by the racers (speed merchants)," he added. He said these races are often held on Islamabad Highway, Margallah Road and Rawal Dam Road on Friday and Sunday.
Our teams have been successful in reducing stunts by motorists and motorcyclists but still there are few who gather on various roads for racing.
" We will eliminate this practice through strict vigilance," he said but sought the cooperation of parents. The dangerous game has claimed the lives of a number of young people, however, about accident rate in the capital, Dr Temuri said fatal and non-fatal accidents have reduced to 33 percent during last year ever since the newly established ITP started functioning.
To a question about professional approach during investigation of accident cases, he said 22 policemen had been trained by the US Department of Justice, International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Programme. He said four teams comprising policemen, have completed this training, have been constituted to investigate accident cases occurring in the four zones of Islamabad.
About traffic education programme, he said ITP has created awareness among 100,000 road users about traffic laws and regulations through traffic education campaign in the last 13 months.
He said a survey would be conducted by students of various universities to know about performance of ITP. "We will further improve after the feedback from the people through these surveys," he added.