Increased vehicle imports contributing to rise in road accidents

By Maheesha Mudugamuwa

Sri Lanka’s vehicle imports were increasing at an alarming rate burdening the entire road transport system and contributing to more road accidents, Chairman of the National Council for Road Safety (NCRS) U. N. Mallawarachchi said on Tuesday (28).

Mallawarachchi told The Island that one of the main reasons for the increase in road accident injuries was the growing number of motor vehicles in use.

He said that nearly 525,421 vehicles had been registered with the Motor Traffic Department in 2011. That was an increase of 46 percent over the 359,243 vehicles registered during 2010. Vehicle registrations reached a new high with increased registration of motor cars, three-wheelers and motorcycles.

Traffic mishaps had been the highest type of accidents during festive seasons in Sri Lanka, he added.

"Urgent road net-work expansion is not easy and not practical as when the road net-work expands after sometime all those areas will also get clogged with vehicles. We can’t control this situation. Even in developed countries they haven’t been able to give a permanent solution to the traffic congestion problem," the NCRS chairman said.

"The only solution for traffic congestion is to build a proper public transport system", he said.

After opening the Colombo Outer Circular Highway, which extends from Kottawa through the Homagama, Kaduwela, Biyagama, Mahara and Wattala Divisional Secretariat areas up to Kerawalapitiya, the traffic congestion problem would reduce, he said.

He added that with rising GDP of the country the capacity to borrow had been enhanced and also largely due to reduction in income taxation initially and partly due to rebound in post-war economic and disposable income, vehicle imports had doubled from US$ 546 million in 2010 to US$ 1 billion last year.

According to the statistics, one-fourth of Sri Lanka’s 20 million populations own vehicles and the total number of vehicles registered with the Motor Traffic Department last year was 4,479,372. Of that 2,354,163 were motorcycles. New motorcycle registrations shot up to 253,331 in 2011.

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