LAHORE: The rising toll of road accidents in the city has shown no sign of abating, with 276 traffic accidents reported across various areas during the past 24 hours, leaving one person dead and 363 people injured.
According to Rescue officials, of those injured in the accidents, 143 seriously injured persons were shifted to local hospitals for further medical treatment, while 218 with minor injuries were provided first aid at the scene.
The on-site treatment of the majority of casualties reflects the operating model of Punjab’s emergency service, which is designed to stabilise and treat where possible rather than transport every case, preserving hospital emergency capacity for patients who genuinely require it.
Rescue officials said most of the accidents occurred due to violations of traffic laws. Citizens have been advised to observe traffic regulations and adopt precautionary measures while travelling.
The figures describe a city in which more than eleven road accidents occur every hour, around the clock. Averaged over a full day, roughly fifteen people are injured on Lahore’s roads every sixty minutes.
That such volume produces relatively few fatalities on any given day should not obscure the cumulative burden. Serious injuries requiring hospital admission — 143 in this single 24-hour period — impose sustained costs on families through lost earnings, treatment expenses and long-term disability, and place continuous pressure on the emergency and orthopaedic departments of public hospitals that are already operating near capacity.
Road safety specialists in Pakistan have consistently identified two-wheeler traffic as the dominant factor in urban accident statistics. Motorcycles are the primary mode of transport for a large share of Lahore’s working population, offering affordability and manoeuvrability in congested traffic while providing almost no protection to the rider in a collision.
Helmet non-compliance, riders carrying multiple passengers, lane indiscipline, wrong-way movement, and the mixing of slow-moving and high-speed traffic on the same carriageways are the behaviours most frequently cited by enforcement and rescue agencies alike.
The City Traffic Police maintains sector-based deployment across Lahore, with enforcement of helmet requirements, licensing, one-way violations and signal compliance forming the core of routine operations. Rescue 1122, the province’s emergency service, maintains ambulance stations distributed across the city with the aim of reaching incident sites within minutes of a call.
However, both agencies have repeatedly noted that enforcement alone cannot close the gap. Road engineering deficiencies — inadequate signage, poorly designed intersections, absent pedestrian crossings and insufficient street lighting — contribute to accident risk in ways that no volume of ticketing can address.
Rescue officials reiterated their appeal to the public to comply with traffic laws and adopt precautionary measures during travel, noting that the overwhelming majority of the incidents recorded in the past 24 hours were preventable.
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