Police Headquarters was still in the process of evaluating the use of headlights by motorcyclists during daytime to prevent accidents, but were yet to consider its legalisation under the Motor Traffic Act, sources said.

The programme was initiated during the last week of January and police said it was still too early to assess its success.

Police Headquarters sources said it was found that motorcycle accidents had reduced in many African countries on the implementation of similar laws.

A senior police officer of the city traffic division said if it was found to be successful it would be legalised and introduced countrywide.

“We have taken quite a few important initiatives to bring down the number of road accidents. When the vehicles increase the exposure for accidents also increases, but to control or at least to minimize it we should have strict laws,” he added.

Apart from the initiatives taken by the police, the Ministry of Transport has also taken steps to bring in regulations to minimize accidents, where public transport vehicles could only be driven by persons between 23 and 65 years.

More than 2,100 persons lost their lives due to accidents last year. In 2011, a total of 1,750 persons lost their lives due to road accidents and the highest number of victims was that of pedestrians.

However, 2012 had a significant increase in the number of road accidents and there were many instances were between four to seven people were killed due to an accident and a total of 2,265 deaths were reported. (Supun Dias)