According to the Metropolitan Traffic Police Division in coordination with students, automobile dealers and other volunteer groups are marking the road safety week from May 6 to 12. The Department of Transport Management, traffic and the public transport entrepreneurs also organized three-day training for drivers and public vehicle staffers.[break]
In 2010, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted resolution 64/2551, which proclaimed a Decade of Action for Road Safety. The goal of the Decade (2011-2020) is to stabilize and reduce increasing trend in road traffic fatalities, saving an estimated five million lives. The same year 1.24 million people lost their lives in road accident across the world.
As per the World Health Organization report issued in 2011, Nepal is in the 127th position in the road safety rankings. But the situation is serious at the national level with five deaths in road accidents every day.
According to Nepal Police, as many as 1,780 people lost their lives in road accidents in the last fiscal year. In the fiscal year 2010/11, 1,587 fatalities were recorded. The data shows that at least five people die in road accidents every day.
Road engineers say a holistic approach is necessary to reduce road accidents in the country. Chief of the Kathmandu Road Division Gopal Khadka says there are many reasons that lead to road accidents.
“Drivers´ carelessness is the most prominent reason behind accidents in urban areas but we can not only blame drivers in the remote areas of the country,” Khadka mentioned.
The first international standard six-lane Koteshwar- Suryabinayak road section came into operation from March 2011. However, the roads are yet to be friendly for all categories of road users. Pedestrians are also unsafe due the ongoing construction as pavements have been demolished in most of the places.
The Kathmandu Valley Road Improvement Project (KVRIP) had recently surveyed the most crowded areas in the capital and found lack of overhead bridges as one of the major difficulties for pedestrians.
Similarly, KVRIP also found that around 80,000 to 100,000 people cross the road at Baneshwar Chowk every day. Metropolitan Traffic Police Division recorded 128 deaths in a year from mid-April 2012 to mid April 2013 in road accidents.
Though casualties have declined road accidents are still on the rise. As many as 5,096 accidents were recoded in the Valley last year against 4,914 accidents two years ago.
Related story
Road safety draft gathering dust at the Ministry of Transport f...
