Quarrel over accident suspends metro service

It took traffic wardens 15 minutes to persuade the driver to move his car to a side

LAHORE: Metro Bus service remained suspended from the Ravi bridge to the Shahdara station for around 40 minutes on Monday afternoon following an accident on the bridge between a bus and a car.

Vehicular traffic was also disturbed as an argument ensued between drivers of the bus and the car. The accident took place on a segment of the route where there is no separate lane for the bus service.



Punjab Mass Transit Authority (PMTA) Director Syed Uzair Shah told The Express Tribune that it was a minor accident. He said the collision had left scratches on the bus’s body. He said the passengers were inconvenienced for a while but were accommodated in another bus.

Shah said a side-view mirror of the car was broken. He said the car driver, who had introduced himself as an army officer, had agreed to leave the scene after some PMTA officials accompanied him to Bilal Ganj auto market and bought him a new mirror to compensate him for the loss. He dismissed media reports that service was suspended on the entire route. He said the service was suspended only on a small segment of the route for around 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, traffic police said it had taken no more than 15 minutes to persuade the car driver to move his vehicle to the side so that traffic could resume on the road.



Ali Nawaz, the Public Relations Officer to the Chief Traffic Officer, said traffic wardens typically needed between 10 and 15 minutes to restore normal traffic following such an accident during rush hours.

The only other accident in the city involving a metro bus was reported in 2013 when a metro bus had run into a pillar along the edge of the track. No passengers were injured in the accident. Three accidents have been reported in Rawalpindi since the inauguration of the service in 2013. Three people have lost their lives in these incidents.

Hameeda Begum, 53, was run over by a metro bus on August 15. She was boarding the bus at Liaqat Bagh station when she fell and was run over. Tabinda Bibi, 65, lost her life in a similar accident near Saddar station on August 23.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 29^th, 2015.