Pakistan reports most road accident deaths in Asia: report

KARACHI: Pakistan ranks first in the Asian region for most fatalities in road accidents in the world whereas Karachi ranks fourth among the cities having the highest traffic accident fatalities in the world.

In the world, the country ranks 48th in the number of deaths in road accidents. The road accidents claim the lives of nearly 1.35 million people in the world each year while 20-50 million people suffer non-fatal injuries due to road crashes.

An assistant professor at the University of Karachi’s (KU) geography department, Dr Salman Zubair, shared this data with the audience during a road safety awareness walk and seminar held at the varsity on Thursday. The seminar was organised by the geography department in collaboration with the National Highway and Motorway Police South Zone at the KU Arts Auditorium.

Dr Zubair, who is also the road safety ambassador of the National Highway and Motorway Police, informed the event that road accidents were the third leading cause of death worldwide. He mentioned that in Karachi, the expected monetary loss due to road accidents was over Rs47.8 billion every year.

He explained that this amount was nearly 0.5 per cent of the GNP and 2.5 per cent of the GDP of Pakistan, and 12.7 per cent of the GDP of Karachi.