Pakistan is the third country in the world for high rate of road accidents and causes over $200 million annually in respect to social and economic losses, said Road Safety experts here on Thursday. They were addressing at a National Road Safety seminar organised by National Highway Authority (NHA). The seminar comprised on "Engineering, enforcement, educational, social environmental and health related aspects of the road safety.
The participants said the trend in road accidents annually is increasing in Pakistan and it is the 3rd country in the world for most number of road accidents annually, and there is need to comprehensive road safety policy to overcome this menace and close co-ordination regarding issue between various public sector organisations to help save public lives during road accidents.
The participants presented various data regarding road accidents in the country and said that annually 9000 road mishaps occur in which an average of 4500 persons lost their lives; In the Punjab last year, 4289 road accidents reported in which 2524 people died whereas 4354 were injured. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a 3051 accidents reported in which 1070 people died and 4214 people were injured. Similarly in Sindh, 982 accidents occurred in which 756 people died; in Balochistan 281 accidents occurred and 156 people died and 264 sustained injuries.
According to the Road Safety experts, the World Health Organisations data showed that from the year 2010 to up till now 1,224,000 people had lost lives in road accidents world-wide, and one person every 25 seconds loses his life in a road accident. The main causes were pointed out that these accidents are: negligence of drivers, use of alcohol and other drugs while driving etc.
Federal Secretary Communications and Chairman NHA Shahid Ashraf Tarar addressing said that escalating trend in road accidents is a painful phenomena for any civilized society and to overcome the problem is the need of the hour. The Authority intends to formulate a comprehensive road safety policy in consultation with all the stakeholders and there is need to create awareness about highway safety, to take practical measures for effective communication among road users so that precious human lives can be saved, the Chairman added.