‘ISLAMABAD the beautiful’ is the message emblazoned across colourful tulips and an open winged butterfly on the mammoth billboard at T-junction where Islamabad highway joins the Airport link-road. Anybody passing in and out of the twin cities, or going to and from the Airport via this route, cannot possibly miss this sign.
The Islamabad highway from this T-junction to Zero Point has turned into a danger-zone, considering the frequency of accidents that take place on this stretch. According to unofficial estimates, the number comes to around four to five crashes on average each day.
Outwardly, the three lane dual carriage way which turns two-lane shortly before Zero Point, looks hardly daunting. The drivers are tempted to press the gas paddle and let go with ease. However, it doesn’t take long to realize the actual life-threats lurking around the fairway in the shape of jaywalkers, bicyclists, pedestrians, fruit vendors etc., who try to go across from all sides.
The posted speed limit reads 80 at intervals but the average speed is close to or even above 100 depending on the road and how spirited is the driver. Open green belts and stray dusty patches run alongside the highway. At intervals, bus-stops, human settlements, some housing areas with dirt tracks leading up to the thoroughfare sprout up suddenly along the road and show a lot of commotion, especially the Lehtrar and Pir Wadhai turnings where the bus-stops are swamped with commuters.
A couple of overhead bridges have been built to let the human traffic cross over from end-to-end without causing problems to vehicles. But tragedy strikes when these villagers, commuters or residents of the adjoining areas, decide not to use the overhead bridge, rather go for the open expanse of the road itself. These pedestrians, bicyclists, motorbike riders and vendors pushing their carts are in fact the root problem.
In a reckless move to cross the road, they either get run over by some unsuspecting driver or create such confusion that the driver loses control and ends up in a serious accident. Even a Formula 1 driver, with all his driving skills and manoeuvres cannot avert hitting at such close range and with literally no reaction time on hand.
For a by-stander, who suddenly decides to plunge into the middle of the road, nothing short of a miracle can save his or the driver’s life. What motivates these otherwise level-headed people to endanger their own life and that of others by sheer foolhardiness, can be attributed either to their reluctance to climb up and down the umpteen number of steps on the overhead bridges or to high adrenaline levels in their blood craving disaster.
Such action and situation compares well with the inherent brain circuitry of an ass, known for such deadly manoeuvres. Who doesn’t know what a donkey is up to when seen to be standing and musing on the road side? Before one can tell, it performs its manic jump and lands in front of an unheeding vehicle with the driver having no better option but to knock the living daylights out of the ass, salvage as much as he can from the mess, himself foremost, and file an insurance claim reading “An ass hit me and went under my car”.
The moral of the story is that only an ass or someone ass-like or having asinine brains can be suspected of doing something so outrageously stupid as to come in front of a moving vehicle of his own sweet violation and that too with no wish to die. For what on earth then!? Somebody explain to this dimwit, please! These people perform such delinquent feats that they even put their lower genus to shame.
Pedestrians and bicyclists on the green belt and sides of the highway wait with a foot, or a wheel, on the road to cross over at the first opportunity that shows up. And you’ve got to believe your eyes to see these human bundles shooting across in the wake of in-coming high speed traffic. These drivers and pedestrians play some fancy daring feats before ending up hugging each other. Some more mindful than others, set foot on the road only when their defence mechanism warrants that the distance from the heading vehicle is safe.
But misfortune strikes when the jaywalker decides to test the driving skills of the man behind the wheel and braking mechanism of the vehicle, which by the way, are both neither designed to break the law of inertia nor defy gravity. The result is of course a ‘big bang’ that sends some inadvertent soul flying across the time barrier and others, not that fortunate to mull over the catastrophe on hospital beds, crippled for life.
Anybody, driving with all the care in the world cannot avert a suicidal crash of this nature. But these incidents merely work as intermittent pauses in the human matrix that continues to crisscross the highway as before. Minus these short breaks, the action thriller goes on with its hair-raising suspense and excitement.
To make the situation more farcical than it appears, the traffic police, true to their ilk, have put up some sensational safe-driving warnings at intervals on the Islamabad Highway which seem to be cut out of the script of some emotionally packed melodrama Abbu gari ahista chalain; Hamen aap se bohat piyar hai (Dad, please drive slowly, we love you). Going by the cold materialism that has become a part of our bloodstream it almost sounds like, “Dad don’t you die on us for doing something reckless before we’re actually done with you”. So much for safety and traffic police.
And as for the walking targets, the warning conveniently excludes them. Instead of emotional warnings, some practical measures need to be taken to stop this unheeded flow of people from all sides. To start with, it might be a good idea to fence the green belt all the way. Flashing red or orange lights may be put up to slow down the vehicles at more crowded spots. Some more overhead bridges short distances apart may be erected at more frequent crossing points. One of these measures may just be a step in the right direction.
The nation’s motto “Unity, Faith and Discipline” is cemented in white paint on a sloping hill on the side of the highway. It’s ironic how everybody, on and off the fairway, firmly adheres to this so-called national motto. With what ‘Unity’ the jaywalkers and vehicles come together and with what unshakeable ‘Faith’ these fatalists throw themselves in front of pouncing death defies destiny itself. And as for ‘Discipline’, it looks like the same discipline of dereliction and doom like everywhere else in this country, is at work here as well.
The vehicles, the jaywalkers, the ever oblivious traffic police and other concerned authorities have a role to play in this mayhem that continues unabated. All sounds pretty familiar, eh! Nothing new to write home about, I guess.
‘ISLAMABAD the beautiful’ is the message emblazoned across colourful tulips and an open winged butterfly on the mammoth billboard at T-junction where Islamabad highway joins the Airport link-road. Anybody passing in and out of the twin cities, or going to and from the Airport via this route, cannot possibly miss this sign.
