Tackling problems the wrong way

Trust the city government to tackle problems in the worst possible way. So much was written against hoardings, which had caused more than a dozen deaths following the June thunderstorm, that the authorities concerned finally decided to do something about it.

A couple of giant-sized cranes started pulling off hoardings on Sharea Faisal opposite the Hotel Regent Plaza late in the evening last week, causing a huge traffic jam. All those coming from I.I. Chundrigar Road, Clifton, Saddar, and the Pearl Continental Hotel got stuck opposite the Mehran Hotel or in front of the Avari Tower Hotel or the Services Club. Even an Aga Khan Hospital ambulance carrying a patient in need of urgent medical care got stuck.

To make matters worse, the authorities concerned had made sure that the traffic lights at the Mehran Hotel and Regent Plaza Hotel intersections remained out of order so that the hoarding removers could carry on with their work unhindered.

Why is it that the people have always to suffer at the hands of government officials and departments? Why was this work not carried out late in the night (after 2am) the way hoardings had been set up without even a soul knowing about it? Well, they to tell the nation: “Look, we are such efficient officials that we are having the hoardings removed as quickly as possible.”

The same process was repeated on M.A. Jinnah Road the following day with the cranes being witnessed by vexed citizens.

But, if you think that the work was followed through, you’re wrong: while the hoardings have been stripped off their advertisements, their giant iron pillars and iron frames still stand, undamaged. Even frames can be seen on the terraces of buildings minus their images. All this is looking extremely ugly. Maybe the authorities, the officials and the marketing tycoons concerned are just waiting for things to settle down a bit so that they can plaster these empty frames with advertisements again and fill their coffers with money. The landlords too are waiting so that they can increase their incomes as the money minted from rented flats is just not enough to make ends meet.

And mind you, none of the hoardings have been removed at Karsaaz where the Pakistan Navy has its museum. It seems like PN officials need money badly. Or maybe they firmly believe that these monstrous hoardings are beautifying the premises of Karsaaz and the PN Museum. Or maybe, just maybe, these hoardings are immune to any kind of natural disaster, be it rain or thunderstorm or cyclones.

—Mohsin Maqbool Elahi

Driving in dismay

In terms of the city's traffic, the so-called educated sections of society need to own up to the role they play in the worsening situation.

(We'll leave aside issues of seminal importance that are being addressed by the authorities, such as making sure that every driver on the road has a licence; that the person to whom each licence is issued has a practical knowledge of traffic laws and safety procedures; the strict enforcement of traffic laws, which depends to a great extent on the incorruptibility of traffic policemen, which in turn requires that the policemen are adequately paid and answerable to a credible and just chain of command.)

The fact is that those who ought to know better also play a role. Let us take the case of privately-owned luxury vehicles that are routinely driven by drivers.

Many well-to-do households in Karachi employ drivers, sometimes in order to maximise the use of the car (so that it does not, for example, stand outside an office all day but is used by other members of the family as well) and at other times in order to save the owners from the undeniable hassle of navigating the city streets.

The observant citizen will notice that drivers often break traffic laws - such as making a right turn from the furthermost left lane, or breaking the queues at traffic lights, or overtaking from the wrong side - with the employer/owner sitting in the back seat. In such cases, the responsibility lies squarely on the passenger’s shoulders, since he is not only employing the driver but is also the one who passes himself off as ‘educated’ and should therefore be aware of the laws. Surely it is his responsibility to make sure that his employee is aware of the rules and follows them.

The passenger ought to be vigilant about his chauffeur’s driving techniques and try to improve them - not by finding fault but by being instructive.

That drivers drive badly is sometimes not even their fault. How many times have you noticed that the passenger, often a well-heeled begum, orders the driver to “turn right here” without caring that he no longer has the space to change lanes properly; or to “stop just here” without caring that traffic being held up while she disembarks from the vehicle; or even “hurry up, I’m late”, which is probably the most unforgivable of all since it jeopardises other peoples’ safety.

The manner in which drivers navigate such expensive cars becomes significantly more reckless when there is no passenger in the car. This is not hard to understand if one keeps the country’s socio-economic divides in mind.

Consider a man who is possibly educated to a certain degree but equally possibly

illiterate. He has the potential of earning no more than a few thousand rupees a month in any job, but if he gets a job as the driver of a private luxury car, he's got it good.

He works in the temperature-controlled environment of a vehicle that costs more lakhs than he would ever be able to save; he’s got a powerful engine that answers to every command and a wide road in which to play with it. If I were in that position, I too would be inclined to drive without a thought to consequences, for I’d be comforted by the fact that in case something minor happened (and I’d never expect something major to happen – that’s why they’re called “accidents”) I would not be the one paying for it.

Talk about a recipe for disaster.

This is why cars driven by the people who paid for them - rather than their wives, children or drivers - are generally more carefully navigated. The owner appreciates how much sweat and toil went into paying for it.

The vicious circle of bad traffic in the city is that people employ drivers so that they don't have to deal with the traffic themselves, but the increasing numbers of drivers make traffic conditions worse, so the well-off employ more drivers to deal with the situation!—Hajrah Mumtaz

Hospital conditions

A lady doctor visiting a prestigious private hospital some time back pricked her hand on a syringe needle left carelessly in a bathroom. The doctor, living and practising in the United Kingdom, was naturally furious. With her hand dripping with blood, she went to the relevant staff and complained to them about the incident. The staff, however, gave her a cold shoulder.

She rang up Dawn offices to condemn the hospital’s conditions and its staff’s attitude. “The syringe seemed to be placed there deliberately with a malicious intent. It could be contaminated with a deadly virus. Who knows?” she said, adding: “The staff of the hospital, which charges unusually high fees, did not even show the courtesy of offering me an anti-tetanus injection. Such carelessness is unthinkable back in the UK.”

The doctor has probably not heard of the stories of a pair of forceps and other surgical instruments having been left in patients’ abdomens here.—Naseer Ahmad

Email: karachian@dawn.com