January 13, 2003	Monday	Ziqa'ad 9, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 12: The people of the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad are no stranger to the half-hearted campaigns launched off and on by the traffic police against pressure horns.

With the start of the campaign, the police officials deployed at almost all ‘strategic points’ spring into action and remove high-pressure horns from the buses, trucks and wagons, dumping them on the roadside. Even those crossing their palm with silver every month are not spared!

The bulk of horns is later shifted to the police headquarters where in a special ceremony these are crushed under a steamroller. Photographs are published in the newspapers with the traffic police high-ups in the front row and the junior ones peeping over their seniors. Their radiant faces create an impression as though they have brought the havens down.

But no sooner the campaign ends than these high-pressure horns again come in place and the horn-happy drivers honk them with gay abandon. The traffic police also turn a blind eye, as though it were no more a serious offence or it were, as long as long the campaign was on. They are no more insulting and intimidating the drivers, but all sweat and honey and love to “eat out of their hands” again.

The public transport drivers’ joy knows no bounds when they stop their vehicle behind a pedestrian or a passer-by and honk the horn. Everybody travelling by a bus or a wagon might have seen what happens to the poor pedestrian. From medical point of view these pressure horns are harmful to all. They are more damaging for the children who can sustain a permanent hearing damage if exposed to the sound of the horn from a close range.

According to doctors, these horns cause a wide range of malfunctions in the human body, including heart attack, high- blood pressure, chronic depression, irritation and respiratory and gastronomical disorders.

Mr Malik, the owner of a driving school in Rawalpindi, said a majority of the drivers were not directed to avoid using pressure horns and honking them every now and then. He said though there were scores of driver training schools throughout the country and they trained hundreds of drivers every year, they too did not teach the people to avoid using the pressure horns.

He said, pathetically, the ceremonial role of the Regional Transport Authority (RTA), the Environmental Pollution Authority (EPA) and the police department was encouraging the production and sale of these horns to the detriment of the people’s peace. Mr Malik said many public transport drivers could be seen honking these horns at the bus terminals in front of the Rawalpindi General Hospital and Polyclinic where patients in serious conditions are admitted.