Road Accidents made up 1 in 15 of Child Deaths aged 5 to 14, claims Road Safety Expert

Lahore: Road Safety Expert Muhammad Shahid has said that road accidents made up 1 in 15 of all deaths of children aged 5 to 14, adding that that more than half of the children killed in road accidents and two-thirds of those seriously injured were pedestrians. He disclosed this while holding a road safety awareness session, here at Kaus-o-Kaza Foundation School, Rawalpindi.“Speed is literally a matter of life and death for a road user, specially children, the most vulnerable segment of the society.” Founder of the Road Safety First said. In addition, he advised that controlling speed was the most effective way to keep children safer on the roads.

Muhammad Shahid, while referring a research report, further said that the children belonging to poorest families were 20 times more likely to be killed than children from the most affluent homes. Some of the reasons, according to him, were due to living at slums and illegal colonies (Katchi Abaadis) near highways and more busiest roads, having limited places to play, and almost zero experience of car journeys and road crossings.