KATHMANDU, AUGUST 19
Motorcyclists are more vulnerable to road accidents, accounting for majority of fatalities in Kathmandu valley.
According to Metropolitan Traffic Police Division, the valley had recorded 10,733 road accidents in the fiscal 2021-22. Of them, 8,364 cases involved two-wheelers. It constitutes around 78 per cent of total road accidents. Similarly, 191 persons were killed in 10,733 road accidents and 117 of the victims included motorcyclists, followed by 58 pedestrians and remaining others travelling in four-wheelers. The motorcyclists, who were killed in accidents, belonged to 17-35 age group.
Senior Superintendent of Police Rajendra Prasad Bhatta, Metropolitan Traffic Police Division spokesperson, said traffic police had launched a special drive to curb the alarming rate of the road accidents involving two-wheelers. Since the prime cause of the road accident was negligence and violation of traffic rules, the law enforcement agency will be initiating action against the rule violators through special surveillance and checking.
Traffic police carried out a checking that focused on college students yesterday.
MTPD said it booked 114 students in the course of checking. Of them, 48 were caught riding bikes without driving licence and 42 without blue book. Likewise, others were fined for triple riding, negligence and over-speeding.
Most of the road accidents have been attributed to drivers' negligence and human errors, drink driving, mechanical problems, speeding, rampant overtaking and pedestrians' faults. Random and wilful roadside parking, poor condition of roads, lack of awareness about traffic rules and poor road engineering, among others, are also equally responsible for accidents.
The Office of the Auditor General recently, through its annual report, had urged the government to improve road engineering and regulate the traffic pressure to curb road fatalities. Arrangement of adequate number of pedestrian crossings, parking lots, traffic lights, CCTV monitoring system and traffic signs as well as awareness-raising programmes will aid in the reduction of road accidents, it suggested. The report had also recommended that the government make the provision of effective and timely rescue operation and primary care of persons injured in road accidents to reduce the number of causalities. More than 1.2 million vehicles ply the valley roads on normal days.
The common forms of traffic rule violations are violation of traffic signals, use of mobile phones while driving, parking vehicles in no-parking zone, seat belt infraction, mechanical modification of bikes, drink driving, overloading vehicles, overtaking from the wrong side, violating one-way traffic rule and reckless driving.
Violation of lane discipline tops the chart of offences and bikers are mostly ignorant about traffic rules. Violators of traffic rules are fined minimum Rs 500 and maximum Rs 1,500.
A version of this article appears in the print on August 20, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.
