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Editorial: Eliminate traffic fatalities

After insecurity and natural disasters, traffic accidents have been the third deadliest incident that has been on the rise with taking live of Afghans. Several horrible accidents have taken place due to recklessness of the drivers. Undoubtedly, high death tool in traffic accident has raised cancers, but the question is that why traffic accidents are increasing year after year, and what measure the related organizations should be held to prevent such deadly accidents. It is widely known that most of the traffic accidents have occurs due to high speed of vehicles. Last year at least 73 people were killed and 70 others wounded in the country when a bloody accident occurred on Kabul-Kandahar highway. The incident happened when two passenger buses collided with a fuel tanker in Muqer district of Ghazni province. In February of current year, five people were killed and 24 others wounded in Helmand-Kandahar highway. In March, nine people have been killed and two other injured after their mini-bus collided with an oil tanker in northern Balkh province. On August, four people were killed and eight others wounded in a traffic accident in Adraskhan district of western Herat province. In June, a woman was among three persons died after a government pick up vehicle crashed into other cars near the provincial capital of central Parwan province. In May, three people were killed and 10 others sustained wounds in a traffic accident in northwestern Faryab province. In June, three men and two women were killed when the vehicle they were travelling in crashed into a truck in Hazrat Sultan district of northern Samangan province. And the latest one is when six people were killed and 17 others wounded in a traffic accident in Washer district of southern Helmand province on Monday. There have been plenty of road accidents that killed and wounded passengers. Based on the statistics of the World Health Organization (WHO), Afghanistan is one of the countries where the number of casualties caused by traffic accidents is high. After insecurity, traffic accidents have cost the lives of most of the Afghans in the past years. There are some factors behind increase in traffic accident—the important one is substandard roads –due to corruption in road construction contracts, roads are not built according to international standards, and corruption in traffic institutions as drivers could easily get traffic licenses. Reckless drivers and violation of traffic law is another problem. Safety precaution is also not taking into account. Wearing seat built while driving car, and helmet while driving motorcycle, can prevent most of the casualties. However, the ignoring safety is too deadly. It is responsibility of the government to take every available step to protect Afghan masses. The government has to instruct the related officials to take all necessary measure to prevent traffic accidents in the future.

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