The city’s traffic police, in collaboration with the Sindh Home Department, will launch a ‘motorcycle helmet-wearing campaign’ from November 18, an official associated with the campaign said on Friday.
“Oil marketing companies are also being involved in the drive as most of the awareness will be based at the fuel stations, where volunteers will be present along with the traffic police officers to inform motorcyclists about the importance of helmets,” he said.
“All petrol pumps will be part of the campaign.”
The campaign will continue for 10-days and will later be followed by a “friendly” enforcement drive by the traffic police.
The campaign is being launched in connection with a ‘Road Injury Surveillance Project’ report prepared by the Road Injury Research and Prevention Centre of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC).
The Road Injury Research and Prevention Centre at the JPMC was set up in 2006 by the federal Health Ministry after observing the large number of road accidents in the city.
The project’s objectives included quantifying and assessing the severity of road accidents, the magnitude and the gravity of the problem and the pattern and behaviour of accidents on the major arteries of the city.
The data was collected at five selected trauma centres – the JPMC, the Civil Hospital Karachi, the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, the Liaquat National Hospital and the Aga Khan Hospital.
The data showed that the maximum cases come to the JPMC while the AKU has the least number. The JPMC and the Civil Hospital Karachi – the largest government hospitals in Karachi – receive the largest number of road accident victims, 90 percent of them men.
Sixty percent of the road accident cases, 12,000 per annum, involve motorcycles. The rest of the cases, 20,000 to 25,000 cases per annum, involve cars, buses and trucks.
In 90 percent the motorcycle accidents, the victims are not wearing helmet, the research has revealed.
