January 9, 2003

The number of road accidents on highways ison the rise, but the government seems to not have taken any notice, writes Saeed Malik

Newspaper columns are full of gory details of the aftermath of traffic accidents that take place so often on our national highways. Such accidents cause a large number of fatalities of passengers aboard buses as well as privately-owned cars, yet these accidents have failed to jolt the employees of various government departments and agencies out of their deep slumber.

On December 28, 2002, 26 people, including a bride and the relatives of the groom, were killed and over 70 injured when two speeding buses, in a bid to overtake each other, collided head-on with a truck coming from the opposite direction near Khanpur in Rahimyar Khan district. A day later, six persons lost their lives when a passenger coach met with an accident on Gujranwala-Sialkot Road near Deska, when its driver could not keep his hold on the steering wheel of the coach due to over speeding. These are the two most recent accidents, which occurred on the national highways, but hardly any day passes when an incident of this kind from different regions of the country is not reported in the press.

Despite the alarming increase in highway accidents not much seems to have been done by the concerned government departments, including the police and National Highway Authority to take such preventive measures as will ensure the lives of inter-city commuters.

The enormous increase in the number of accidents in recent years and the extensive damage done to the property can be assessed from a report of the National Transport Research Centre released late last year. It has revealed that as many as 6,884 passengers (including drivers of the vehicles) were killed and 13,807 injured (a large number of them seriously) in traffic mishaps in 2000. Undoubtedly, they became the victims of the reckless driving of the commission-motivated drivers, who seem to care little for the traffic rules and regulations. Their behaviour with the commuters and excessive proclivity for rash driving is nothing short of creating vandalism on national highways.

In the large cities, where many pedestrians and cyclists were also killed in traffic accidents, the underage children of rich parents were held responsible for a majority of the deaths. Negligence on the part of the law-enforcing agencies in nabbing rash drivers and teenage scions of the rich, driving their parents’ cars, was also responsible for the increasing number of road accidents in the provincial metropolises, especially Lahore. Granted, Pakistan is not the only country in the world where so many deaths occur each year from road accidents caused by reckless driving, as the industrially advanced countries of the West also suffer from this malaise. However, this should not be treated as a source of some consolation for us, or as a justification for the inertia among officials in the concerned departments, which prevent them from adopting remedial measures to correct the rapidly deteriorating situation on our national highways.

Not necessarily emulating the examples of Western countries, the corrective steps needed for injecting order, discipline and sanity among the drivers have to be Pakistani in content and character, suiting local conditions and environment, and meeting local requirements. Apart from the reckless driving by the public and private sector transport employees, there are several other factors which include the use of rickety vehicles with faulty brakes, dilapidated and neglected roads, over-speeding and overtaking resulting from the desire of the drivers to complete as many round trips as possible in a day to earn more commission, and the addiction to drugs of a large number of drivers.

Indifference of the police officers responsible for regulating the smooth flow of traffic and their disregard for human lives have also been identified as strong contributing factors for the deaths in traffic mishaps. Inter-city commuters have often accused the employees of the concerned government departments of not paying proper attention to this unfortunate situation. Only occasional lip service and some ad hoc measure are what the people get after a major traffic accident.

The government transport department is accused of poor maintenance of vehicles operated by the government transport service, which carry people from one city to another. As a result, a large number of rickety buses are seen plying the roads, which cannot be considered roadworthy.

Compared to this sorry state of affairs, a majority of owners of transport companies in the private sector keep their vehicles in good working conditions. However, in some cases, the maintenance of buses used by the private sector organizations has also been found to be inadequate.

The need of the situation is the adoption of strong measures to ensure the safety of people travelling by buses operated by public and private sector transport companies. One of these steps is the immediate withdrawal of faulty vehicles from the city roads and national highways. Another, and perhaps the most important one, is to do away with the commission given to the drivers and conductors of buses, and raising their salaries considerably.

These measures, if taken, will dissuade the drivers from over-speeding and overtaking and not risking theirs and the lives of their passengers. The imposition of heavy on-the-spot fines and impounding of vehicles for reckless driving and putting rickety vehicles on the roads will inject the desired quantum of sanity among the drivers and the owners of buses.

Several laws currently exist which can serve as an adequate deterrent to reckless drivers provided these are enforced with the required resolve and political will of the rulers. It is an open secret that a large number of coaches, mini-buses and other vehicles used for inter and intra city travel are owned by policemen or their relatives. Many among the traffic cops know about the ownership of these vehicles and are reluctant to taking cognizance of the violation of traffic laws committed by the drivers. The government shall have to identify the cops, who own these vehicles, and take immediate action to punish them for violating traffic laws without any regard to their position or the clout.

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