Road Safety and Vulnerable Road Users in Islamabad, Pakistan

Road safety is becoming a serious public health challenge in Pakistan and developing countries. Each year, about 40000 people die, over 100000 people are disabled with 4% loss of the GDP. The costs of the human lives hardly been realized in the low middle income countries. A content analysis of the road safety literature on Pakistan was done for the last 10 years publications in Pakistan. We used MAX QDA and NVivo to analyze the literature. It was found that road users’ careless behavior, rash driving, less or no enforcement of law, low fine and weak governance were the contributing factors in the road accidents/ road crashes. It was also fund that there were very less pedestrian paths and separate lines for the bicycles/ motorcycles. Pedestrian (vulnerable road users were victim of the road accidents. It was also noted that 70 to 80% road crashes were due to the two wheelers vehicles (motorcyclists) in Pakistan. Surprisingly, motorcycle drivers were also engaged in the road crashes in rural areas of the country. It was also revealed these findings were in-line of the WHO report (2018) where the low- and middle-income countries have 9% vehicle ownership and 44% road accidents. Whereas the technological countries have 44% vehicle ownership and 9% road accidents. This study conclude that Ogburn’s cultural lag is still valid apostolate in the low- and middle-income counties.