Need for revising road safety plan underscored

Speakers at a seminar Friday stressed upon the need for revising road safety plan to prevent accidents and ensure safety to the human lives as around 30,000 to 35,000 road accidents occur annually only in Karachi.
Speaking at a seminar "Safety of transporting dangerous cargo," organized by Automobile Corporation of Pakistan (Autocom) in collaboration with government regulatory authorities, leading Oil Marketing Companies and renowned national/international experts at local hotel here, speakers said road accidents were mostly underreported and there were around 30,000 to 35,000 road accidents annually only in Karachi. They urged the authorities to revise the action plan to prevent such incidents to ensure safety of human lives.
They stressed on the importance of adopting new technologies for vehicles that ensure safety measures and stated that; systems like Electronic Braking System (EBS) were becoming popular to avoid rollovers in petroleum tankers. They said that Pakistan was going through major economic regulatory and infrastructure development due to the CPEC in action and also urged the revision of the regulations on road transportation safety.
Moreover, they also emphasised the importance of electronic braking and electronic stability systems in road tankers and trailers to assist drivers for safer transport and reduce fatalities on the road. Later, the charter for road safety ceremony was also signed in the seminar. The charter was between Oil marketing companies and major stakeholders and the purpose was to plan operations to ensure that safety obligations are met; while promoting driver compliance with the law; encouraging drivers training at levels above the minimum legal standards; ensure vehicles are safe and well maintained; and to promote the health of workforce.
Khayam Hussain, MD, Autocom, Ameer Hussain, program manager at RTIRPC, MD Normec, Vittorio Molino, Naeemullah, Chief Patrol Officer National Highway & Motorway Police, Muhammad IItaf, from Oil and Gas Regulator Authority, Dr Omar Masood Qureshi from Ministry of Communications, Tariq Ejaz Chaudhry, CEO Engineering Board of Development, Asif Ansari, logistic manager at Shell, Nawed Tanwir Abbasi, Manager transport safety at Total and Amir Butt, General Manager Logistic at Hascol spoke at the event.