Jaywalking pedestrian dies after being hit by metro bus

At least four killed in separate road accidents in the capital

ISLAMABAD: A man was killed after he was struck by a Metro Bus in Blue Area on Friday. The accident took place on a day when at least three other motorbike riders died in separate accidents in the capital.

On Friday, 25-year-old Faisal Saeed was crossing the dedicated track for the metro bus on Jinnah Avenue from a point where pedestrian crossings is not allowed. As he crossed one of the tracks, he was struck by a Rawalpindi-bound bus in front of the NICL building.

Saeed, who hailed from the Azad Jammu and Kashmir, used to work as an air conditioner mechanic in Rawalpindi.



Pictures showed Saeed bleeding profusely as he was rushed to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) hospital in an unconscious state. There, doctors pronounced him dead.

In the event of traffic accidents, drivers are usually held responsible if a pedestrian is hurt or killed. However, in this case, the police say they could not hold the bus driver as responsible since it was operating within a dedicated track where pedestrians were not allowed to cross.

Meanwhile, Metro officials told The Express Tribune that no pedestrian, motorbike rider or motorist is allowed to use the dedicated metro track.

To prevent pedestrian crossings, authorities said they had erected fences along the track. However, they added that pedestrians often jump over the fence, or at times even deliberately damage and remove sections of the fence or bars from the guard railing to make sufficient space to cross through as a short-cut instead of using the underground pedestrian crossings at each metro station.

A security guard posted at the Seventh Avenue metro bus station, close to the spot where the accident took place, said they often plug holes in the fence created by pedestrians. Every time they plug a hole, he said, pedestrians punch another one.

There are only four metro stations with pedestrian crossings on Jinnah Avenue between D-Chowk and the Centaurus flyover. These, people say, are not enough in what is the main business district of the capital.

Pedestrians often complain that they were ignored by the designers of the infrastructure.

“The next pedestrian crossing may be around a kilometre ahead. Why would a pedestrian walk a kilometre instead of jumping over or squeezing through the fence to cross over,” asked Ahmed, a resident.



Apart from the tragedy on the metro track, at least three motorbike riders were also been killed in road accidents in the capital, police said on Friday.

Ramna police said a Hiace van struck two men riding on a motorbike on the Kashmir Highway, killing them both. The victims were identified as Zafar Iqbal and Ashfar Khan.

In a separate incident, another motorcyclist, named Shamim, was killed after he was struck by a car near the Radio Pakistan building on Constitution Avenue.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 9^th, 2018.