Highway safety sent on holiday

THE combined death toll from highway accidents during Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul- Azha vacations stands at 115, 90 on the former occasion and 25 on the latter. The injury figures were predictably higher, compounding the misery of households affected.

It is worth noting though that casualties during Eid-ul-Azha have shown a more or less downward trend since 2010 up until the current year. Where in 2010 and 2011, 45 and 46 persons died, the figures for the next three years have been 40, 10 and 25, respectively, as collated from The Daily Star reports. There are no well-researched findings underlining  the reasons either for the higher incidence  of accidents centered around Eid-ul-Fitr as compared with that of Eid-ul Azha or for the declining  trend  of fatalities during the second festival itself. It is time we probed the apparent shift in the rates of incidences and compared the notes with the World Bank and the WHO which put the casualties overall at a much higher notch.

There is quite a familiar pattern of how the accidents occur so that response mechanisms or solutions should have been formulated accordingly. Overloaded vehicles, that too not road-worthy and over-speeding, are headed for collision with an onrushing transport, more so when both try to negotiate an apology of a two-lane highway. Or else, they skid off the road plunging in a road-side ditch.

As it is, highway patrol has been sparse and slack even in normal times, let alone during Eid which demand stepped up vigil.