Seminar on “Road Safety in Islamabad” Held at QAU

A seminar on “Road Safety in Islamabad” organized by the Department of Sociology Quaid-i-Azam University was held to raise the awareness and propose effective measures about the issue of road safety in Pakistan. The seminar was based on the findings of a research project on “Road Safety” to understand the attitude and behavior of commuters, funded by Higher Education Commission of Pakistan.

Deputy Commissioner Islamabad Muhammad Hamza Shafqaat was the chief guest of the event. Dr. Muhammad Zaman, Chairman, Department of Sociology, QAU and principal investigator of the project on Road Safety shared the preliminary findings of the research survey. Dr. Zaman highlighted the critical state of road safety in global and national perspective. Further, he proposed sustainable measures to counter this situation with the focus on effective licensing system, electronic surveillance, smart parking and effective legislation. Besides this he also proposed a Smart Public Transport System. He asserted there is need to impose carbon emission tax in order to reduce the health problems.

The Deputy Commissioner, Hamza Shafqaat shared his views on the issue of road safety and existing initiatives taken to improve the situation of safer road. He praised the efforts of Department of Sociology and the role played in highlighting this issue. He also discussed the socio-cultural barriers at communal level in implementation of projects in which social scientists and youth can play a significant contribution. A joint collaborative initiative started between Deputy Commissioner Islamabad and Department of Sociology who offered a “Letter of Support” to Chairman to continue his work on “Road Safety in Islamabad”. He further proposed to engage the students of QAU in awareness activities and seminars to be carried by DC office ICT. He stressed that mutual collaboration is meaningful to better understand and deal with road safety challenges. Mr. Kamran Cheema, Additional Deputy Commissioner also added the efforts of the Islamabad Transport Authority to maintain the road safety. He highlighted how the ICT administration is facing problems in implantation of the law and orders on roads. He stressed that ICT administration will launch innovative solutions with the assistance of the universities Sociology Department of QAU. Dr Imran Sabir, Assistant professor at Sociology Department QAU presented closing remarks in which he thanked all of the guests and participants of the seminar.