PHOTO: AURANGZEB HANEEF
This was revealed by Dr Salman Zubair from the University of Karachi's geography department, at a workshop, 'Road Safety and Modelling', organised by the Pakistan Sustainable Transport Project at NED University on Thursday.
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Prof Ghulam Bham from the University of Alaska also spoke to the participants via Skype. Motorway police DIG Dr Walliulah and CEO of the Institute of Road Safety Traffic Environment Dr Kaiser Khatana also spoke at the two-day international workshop.
While speaking about a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based appraisal for economic losses faced by RTA victims in Karachi, Dr Zubair explained that the GIS contained data relating to RTAs, which they process through computer software to come up with various findings.
One of the most dreadful aspects of RTAs, according to him, is that it costs a substantial share of monetary assets due to the loss of working time by the victims, also called loss of labour output, because the highest numbers of victims belong to the most productive age group of society.
By using the human capital approach, he said that it was projected that more than $670,000 was wasted in monetary losses in Karachi in more than 26,000 RTA cases in 2012.
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According to World Health Organisation (WHO) reports for world statistics of road accidents, Dr Zubair said that nearly 1.2 million people die each year and between 20 and 50 million people suffer from nonfatal injuries due to road accidents. "More than 1,000 youngsters die daily due to RTAs across the globe," he said.
In 2012, 35,671 people were injured in Karachi, of which there were 1,179 fatalities, 7,292 severe injuries and 27,195 minor injuries. Due to this, he said the port city has lost $488.7 million due to the RTAs in the year 2012 based on the reported data and that nearly 65 per cent of the RTA victims belong to a young age-group.
"This lost labour output accounts for 36 per cent of the cost of severe injury RTA victims in Karachi," he claimed, adding that the lost labour output makes up 10 per cent of the cost of minor injury RTA victims in Karachi.
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Highlighting the increased number of vehicles in the city, he said that, nearly 1,000 vehicles plied on the streets of Karachi every day from 2014 to 2015. He said Saddar was experiencing the highest number of minor injury accidents. However, according to him, Malir Cantonment, with almost the same demographics, was far behind in terms of road accidents. "The difference was only because of management," he claimed.
He said that around 7,292 citizens were severely injured in RTAs in 2012 and the average cost of lost labour output due to this was more than Rs2.3 million. According to Dr Zubair, Korangi was number one for the number of fatal accidents, mainly because of speed. "Around 1,179 people died due to RTAs in 2012 [in Karachi]," he said, adding the lost labour output incurred was more than Rs4.5 million.
Dr Khatana said that it was necessary to understand traffic rules and uphold them. Citing the WHO report, he said that 130,000 persons had died in road accidents in last 10 years and 50,987 lost their lives to terrorism in Pakistan.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 18th, 2015.
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