Missing sign boards contributing to accidents

Twin cities become nightmare to navigate at night due to lack of reflectors on roads

RAWALPINDI:

Crooked, misplaced, and often missing traffic sign boards are the hallmarks of the congested roads of Rawalpindi and Islamabad resulting in disturbed traffic flow and nasty accidents.

For those visiting the city the poor planning that goes behind installing sign boards, makes the twin cities a nightmare to navigate and the problem is exacerbated at night due to the lack of reflectors on roads and around sign boards which leads to missed turns and the perception that the two cities are not visitor friendly.

As per the traffic rules, the competent authorities are obliged to put up sign boards indicating intersections, dangerous bends, u-turns, and highlight road dividers with reflectors but the practice is largely ignored in the twin cities as per residents. Fawad Hashmi, a government employee who takes the route from the Serena Hotel and Rawal Dam Chowk, Faizabad, to go home, said that after crossing Serena Hotel, two major intersections up to Rawal Dam Chowk have become extremely dangerous. “Accidents are becoming more common here as there are no traffic reflectors or traffic mirrors installed which affects small vehicles and motorcycle riders like me,” he said.

Hashmi is not the only one in the long list of complainers regarding the twin cities’ unsafe roads. Zulqarnain Raja, while talking to the Express Tribune, informed that the dangerous Islamabad Expressway is devoid of traffic reflectors, traffic awareness mirrors, or speed monitors which had made accidents a daily occurence on it.

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Badshah Khan, a transporter by profession, went a step further in his critique by comparing the roads in arguably the country’s most developed city to those in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where he used to work.

“Heavy vehicles are driven day and night in UAE but major accidents are rare because road safety signs exist, reflectors are installed, u-turns are properly indicated,” Khan informed, “meanwhile, over here the city administration is inviting accidents by not even labeling intersections properly.”

The lack of proper labels is a nuisance especially for those who are first time visitors of the twin cities. Gulzar Ansari, who was visiting the city to meet family, was frustrated at the fact how hard it was to identify roads and turns. “Apart from the chaotic traffic, for any outsider, these two cities are challenging to navigate,” Ansari lamented, “I was about to be in multiple accidents today just because I could not find the turns or any board indicating where they were.”

Spokesperson of the Traffic Police Rawalpindi, Inspector Kashif Soroush, when inquired about the plight of residents and visitors alike, conceded that lack of proper sign boards and traffic reflectors was an issue but was also dismissive about their importance by adding that the main cause of traffic accidents was hasty drivers and speeding. “If the traffic safety signs and reflectors are such a serious problem, then accidents should happen constantly because of this reason but the accident rate is low. Overspeeding is the main cause of accidents,” Soroush told The Express Tribune.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, March 14^th, 2022.