A number of Afghan citizens expressed concern over the increasing traffic incident in the country and say that in order to reduce incidents, the traffic laws should be implemented.
Increase of traffic accidents on the country’s highways has turned into a painful drama and traveling on the highway has become a death sentence, for passengers.
A citizen, Sayed Amin Mohammad, says that recently traffic accidents have increased in the country’s highways, in which scores of our countrymen lost their lives during their journey.
“The traffic department should consider tougher rules for drivers or prevent from distributing driver’s licenses for those who didn’t receive training programs, because they are not familiar with the traffic rules while driving, therefor they commit accident,” said Mohammad.
In recent months, Kabul-Kandahar, Kandahar-Herat, Kabul-North, Bamyan-Daikundi, Bamyan-Ghor highways were witnessed tragic traffic accidents, in which claimed scores of lives.
There are many factors behind the increase of traffic incidents on the country’s highways, which can be summarized as human, environmental and technical factors.
From technical point of view, the breakdown, narrow width of the roads, lack of traffic signs on the roads, and lack of professional traffics on the highways as well as rock and mountain slides, the threat of floods, earthquakes and other natural disasters, are natural factors that cause traffic accidents.
Meanwhile, some road engineers say that the roads that have been built in previous years in the country are non-standard and of poor quality.
When a traffic accident happens, people criticize and blame drivers, and there are many reasons to confirm this claim, while the drivers give more reasons to remove the blame from themselves, they call the main factors behind the increase in traffic accidents narrow of highways roads and the simultaneous use of all kinds of vehicles on the same road, while passengers accuse the drivers of carelessness, fast driving, and overloading of cargo vehicles and lack of knowledge of traffic rules.
Nazif, another Afghan citizen, says, there are many rumors and accusations that drivers of passenger vehicles and Lorries use drugs while driving and they drive at maximum speed to reach their destination.
The behavior and obligations of a driver they forget, while every business has its own culture and morals.
“Drivers can show the image of a cultured and responsible driver by acting lawfully, and by following the law and understanding that the lives and survival of many people are in their hands while driving, they can take measures and can be the owner.”
This is the fact that most of the drivers are involved in the occurrence of traffic accidents in our country, in addition to that, the culture of amnesty and forgiveness in Afghanistan has caused the drivers who break the law not be punished and thus evading the law has become a habit for drivers
From the point of view of traffic experts, to define traffic problems and increase of accidents in the country lack of roads and passages in the country, the presence of mental and nervous disorders in some drivers, heavy traffics are the main factors.
In order to address the challenge, government institutions should work, seriously on regulations, and make the method of punishment more binding not only for the driver, but also for the rider and passerby, adjust the control method on the highway according to the new standards, and expand the level of inspector of drivers in the country.
Masouda Qarizada