Road Accidents in Pakistan

Reach Alarming High

Road accidents are one of the leading causes of deaths in Pakistan
and 30,310 or 2.69% of people in Pakistan die due to road accidents each year.
This means that about 20 people out of 100,000 die in road accidents in a year,
making Pakistan rank 67 in the world for a higher percentage of road traffic
accidents. A report in 2013 by World Health Organisation stated that by 2030,
road accidents will become 5th major cause of deaths.
From the data collected over the past 10 years, fifteen people die each day in
traffic accidents across Pakistan. Punjab has proven to have the highest road
accident deaths, followed by Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. From
a report released in 2014, by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, a total of 8,885
accidents were registered by police authorities out of which, 4,672 people were
killed.
The report also mentioned that, from 2004-2013, a total of 51,416 people died out
of 97,739 accidents across the country. Out of the total number of people reported
dead, 29,524 were killed in Punjab, 9,639 in Sindh, 9,494 in KPK and 2,250 in
Balochistan. The figures mentioned are of those recorded by the authorities; this
means that the numbers will be larger,
Road accidents are in high numbers because people ignore traffic rules and road
signs, break signals, over speed, recklessly perform wheelie on bikes, use mobile
phones while driving, overtake from the wrong side, use drugs and wrongly park
A lot of people who drive, don’t have licenses and those who have licenses, got
them illegally, without taking part in any driving tests.
Despite these high and alarming figures, local car manufacturers in Pakistan aren’t
doing enough to provide safety in their cars. Basic safety features like airbags.
Government should make helmet cumpulsory by law or impose a lower speed
limit for those who do not use helmet and driving test for issue of license is to be
made more stringent and foolproof to overcome road accidents.