Road accident deaths decrease by 8pc in last six years

ISLAMABAD: The past six-year record from Pakistan Bureau of Statistics showed that total fatalities in road accidents decreased by eight per cent from 2015 to 2020.

However, interestingly, the data available with this correspondent revealed that Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab contributed up to 80 per cent of the total road accidents occurring across Pakistan.

Afzal Shigri, a retired senior police officer, when contacted by The News, said that mountainous areas like KP were more prone to road accidents because of various reasons. He said because of dangerous weather and difficult road networks, more accidents would take place there.

Dr Shoaib Suddle, a retired police officer, said crime related figures were always underreported. He was surprised to see enormous figures of road accidents in KPK despite fewer number of cars and people in that area compared to other parts of the country.

The data available with The News showed that over 40pc of total accidents in Pakistan prove fatal. According to the data, a total of 68,322 accidents on road took place in the past six years, out of which 27,629 proved fatal.

Panjab was on top in reporting most road accidents – both fatal and non-fatal – contributing up to 43pc of the total accidents that took place during 2015 to 2020. A total number of 29,706 road accidents took place in only Punjab in this period of time.

The KP witnessed a total number of 25,040 road accidents, making up to almost 37pc of the total accidents on roads countrywide. Sindh, Balochistan, Islamabad Capital Territory, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu & Kashmir showed minimal road accidents as compared to those taking place in KP and Punjab. The accumulative road accidents in these two provinces and three territories were not even half altogether of what took place in only Punjab and KP.

In Sindh, a total of 5,543 accidents took place in last six years, whereas in GB, AJK, ICT and Balochistan, the number of total accidents from 2015 to 2020 were 1,007, 2,486, 1,373 and 2,536, respectively.