The Home Department and the city’s traffic police have jointly planned to launch comprehensive awareness campaign followed by an enforcement drive to ensure that motorcyclists wear helmets. This was decided in a meeting held on Wednesday to review the Road Safety Programme in Karachi.
The meeting, convened by the Consultant on Home Affairs, Sharafuddin Memon, was attended by Road Traffic Injury Research and Prevention Centre Principal Investigator Dr Abdul Rasheed Hussain, former IGP Asad Jahangir and the traffic DIG. It was pointed out in the meeting that during the current year, 89 motorcyclists were killed in road accidents in the city.
According to a report prepared by the Traffic DIG, motorcyclists are involved in 52.35 percent of fatal accidents and in most of these accidents, the riders die due to head injuries. The report further revealed that during the period, 58 pedestrians were also killed and 61 injured in traffic accidents. The participants of the meeting decided to draft a summary for the chief minister for replicating the highway police module in Karachi traffic police to bring sustainable reforms in traffic system.
It was also decided that money would be raised to discourage traffic violations. During the meeting, the traffic DIG disclosed that 15 percent of the deposited challan money is given to traffic policemen on welfare basis every year.
