Population and vehicle ownership are the two most important factors that directly cause an increase in the victims of road traffic accidents or severe crashes. There are different types of road users in the traffic stream of Karachi. Apart from that, diversified nature of drivers and riders is also what makes the situation more hazardous and unpredictable.
Unfortunately, the risk of drivers facing or causing crashes is higher as compared to other type of road users, although it varies with the number of vehicles. The traffic crashes may be because of over-speeding, overtaking, negligence of drivers, improper or absence of road and infrastructure facilities, novice and overage driving, vehicle fault, medical illness and many others. All the contributory factors come under the head of three broader divisions: namely, human, road/infrastructure and vehicle contributory factors.
It leads one to believe that there is a lack of traffic safety because of inappropriate enforcement of rules, drivers’ training and management issues. There is a need of classifying and training the drivers as specific road user groups. For example, the school van drivers maybe trained as a specific road user group.
Special interest groups, NGOs and other organisations may also contribute in this regard. One of the organisations in this field, the Social Research and Development Organisation (SRDO), is working in the area of traffic management and road safety. The training programmes should be mandatory not only for school van drivers but for all type of road users.
It is a usual practice that school van drivers do not take into consideration driving safety precautions, making them more prone to accidents. They do no control overloading which in turn upsets the balance according to the centrifugal force on the road geometry (curve effect, sharp turnings or junctions). There should be a proper management for monitoring the system deployed by the concerned departments.
At the preliminary stage of issuance of license, proper training of school van drivers should be a mandatory part, that would ultimately correspond to a safe and sound traffic management system in Karachi.
KHAWAJA SHEERAZ
Karachi
The article loses focus somewhere in between, however, the issue raised by the author is of significant nature. Some of the recommendations are vague, and do not focus primarily to School Van drivers. I think this road user group demands special focus from the authorities, further to that i think every school van should clearly depicts that it is a vehicle that carried children (some sort of sign on the vehicle, applying the same notion as emergency ambulance).
Moreover, there should be some law regarding the speed of those vehicles as they would not allow to cross 30-35 km/hr speed limit, this should be properly enforced through traffic police especially during early morning and afternoon times according to the opening and closing times of schools. I have seen some school vans speeding especially in the morning times to arrive at school location around its opening times, as school authorities usually are not flexible in permitting students to enter when they reach after their defined time slots.
If only two of the above recommendations can be seriously considered, in my opinion significant number of accidents can be reduced for this road user group.
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