The number of Motor vehicle accidents in the country is increasing every year. The Road Safety and Transport Authority (RSTA) recorded 1450 road accidents in the year 2018-2019.
This according to the authority, is an increase of about three hundred road accidents compared to the statistics of the year 2017-2018.
As per the report, the traffic accidents claimed 110 lives during the year 2017-2018 and 109 lives during 2018-2019. And due to road accidents, although the number of deaths almost remained the same, the number of people injured has increased from 557 in 2017-2018 to 692 during the year of 2018-2019.
According to an official from RSTA, today, human error is one of the main reasons for the road crashes in the country.
“Human error in the sense it’s the behaviour of the road users. If we talk about the motorists, it’s about over speeding, drink driving, using mobile phones or any hand-held devices while driving. These are some of the main causes and also driving without a license. If someone doesn’t have a license but still when you are out of surveillance of the law then you tend to drive because you know how to drive but you do not know the rules. So when you encounter people who know the rules and when you do not know the rules, then it leads to road crashes,” said Sonam Dhendup, a Programme Officer at RSTA.
The report also states that of the total Motor vehicle accidents recorded, the majority of accidents happened in Chhukha Dzongkhag. Almost 35 per cent of the accidents occurred between Thimphu-Phuentshogling highway followed by Thimphu Jurisdiction with 20 per cent.
“If we look at the figure, most of the cases are in Chhukha, so when we talk about Chhukha, I think the sole reason for having such a huge number is because Thimphu-Phuentshogling highway is one of the busiest highways in our country and its one of the commercial highways. And if you talk about Thimphu, Thimphu has 45 per cent of vehicle population, so when there are too many vehicles, so accidents, road crashes are likely to happen,” he added.
He further added, to reduce road fatalities, the authority plans to enhance the frequency of inspections on the highways and create awareness on road safety.
Pema Seldon Tshering
