Muhammad Usman
Punjab Emergency Service (PES) Rescue 1122 on Sunday commemorated World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims in all districts of Punjab.
The day was marked in remembrance of victims of road crashes, their families and communities.
PES Director General Dr Rizwan Naseer said that the objective of WDoR is to provide a platform for road traffic victims and their families to remember all people killed and seriously injured in accidents. He said that the day is also a sources to acknowledge the crucial work of emergency services, advocate for better support for road traffic victims and victim families and promote evidence-based actions to prevent and eventually stop further road traffic deaths and injuries.
Dr Rizwan Naseer also paid rich tribute to all those emergency responders include rescuers, police, medical professionals, and others who deal with the traumatic aftermath of road crashes daily.
In this regard, an awareness walks, seminars, rallies, and workshops were organized at all districts headquarters of Punjab to raise awareness among citizens for the prevention of road traffic crashes in accordance with the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011–2020. The victims of road crashes were invited to the seminars to share their experiences of grievances, feelings, serious injuries, disabilities and loss of precious lives of their near and dear ones in road traffic crashes.
They stressed adopting safety measures while driving a motorbike and traveling on roads. The road safety experts also regretted the alarmingly an increasing number of road traffic crashes in which thousands of people are died and disabled annually, whereas a large number of those victims who are under treatment in a critical situation and most of them might be between in life and death situation in hospitals across Pakistan.
Addressing the awareness seminar, DG Rescue Punjab said that nearly 1.3 million people die annually and over 50 million disabled due to road traffic accidents, and 90% of these deaths occur in developing countries like Pakistan. He highlighted statistics of road traffic crashes in Punjab and said that the service has so far responded to over 2.6 million road traffic crashes across the province, whereas Rescue Service alone is managing around 970 road crashes daily. The data revealed that an accident occurs after every 1.6 minutes in which around 83% traffic crashes are evolved with the motorbike.
He analyzed that a total of over 2.6 RTCs were reported in the last 16 years out of which 3.1 million people injured. Out of these injured of RTCs, 3,28367 had Head Injuries, 54,281 had Spinal Injuries, 252,875 had Multiple Fractures, 480,305 had Single Fractures, whereas fortunately 1,986,896 (64%) were minor injured. He said that males were the most vulnerable road users as 79 percent of the victims while only 21 percent of females were affected in road traffic crashes whereas 34,164 died at the site of accidents in Punjab.
He said that over-speeding was the leading cause of accidents (40%), followed by careless driving (33%),
