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LAST week didn’t go too well for Karachi’s traffic police. Monday started with the news that the department had decided to roll up its sleeves and try to do something — anything — about the city’s nightmarish traffic situation. Remedies must obviously match the scale of a problem, and the tangles on the roads of this city are of legendary proportions. So, the measures announced were severe enough to literally instil fear: anyone caught driving without a licence, said the authorities, would be arrested and jailed for up to a month.
One may pause here to spare a thought for the hundreds of traffic policemen who must have gone to work that day; no doubt they had an unaccustomed spring in their stride as they pondered the rosy thought of finally having in their arsenal a tool with which to counter at least some of the drivers who plague them on a daily basis. Not just do drivers flout the law with impunity, they often seem to take positive pleasure in the traffic policemen’s discomfiture. Anyone who has noticed the manner in which these poor souls often actually jump into the path of a moving vehicle in order to get the driver to obey the red light could not argue otherwise.
It’s a pity, then, that the result of this move was a lesson in the law of unintended consequences. They probably did catch a few people without licences because the numbers are certainly on their side: according to the records of the Motor Vehicle Inspection and Driving Licence Branch of the Capital City Police, Karachi, only 1.2 million licences have been issued, against the 3.8 million registered vehicles plying the city roads. Even allowing for persons who hold licences issued in another city, this implies that there be thousands of people who don’t have one.
It seems that thousands of people drive without a licence in Karachi.
Within hours, though, a more urgent problem started to emerge. Anxious to avoid the strong arm of the law, people flooded the offices that issue licences; the rush was so great that the system broke down. Over the next couple of days, the drive was suspended twice and then altogether, and it was announced that new branches would be opened for the issuance of the documents.
The experience illustrates the fact that if Pakistan’s traffic problems are to be addressed, it can only be done through a cohesive, multi-pronged and creatively thought-out strategy — possibly even sets of strategies. Consider, for example, what the traffic police in different cities themselves say on official websites about the challenges.
One major problem seems to be the state of disrepair or poor engineering of the roads in many places. Another is the mix of vehicles, from donkey- and hand-carts to container trucks and tankers. The Lahore police blame car-leasing, too, correctly to some extent: one of the fascinating figures I came across in last week’s driving licence debacle is the fact that a little over 900 new, private vehicles are added to the roads of Karachi every single day.
There is evidence that rectification can be achieved, though. In fact, like many other things in Pakistan, the frustrating thing is not that the problems are intractable, but that here and there officialdom figures it out, and then either promptly forgets the solution or fails to replicate it — as though having demonstrated piecemeal success were enough.
Several years ago, for example, Lahore did manage to sort its traffic situation out. The new institution of the Traffic Police Wardens was created and initially 3,000 new people were inducted. The aim was to attract people who were less likely to indulge in petty bribery and corrupt practices, and more likely to be committed to their work. The how was simple: salaries were raised, and the education criterion was raised to graduate level. Once these men and women joined the force, enforcing the law inflexibly, within a fairly short span of time the problem was sorted. (Though I’m told that in recent years the city has regressed to the bad old days.)
Other success stories can be found in the Motorway Police and the traffic management of Islamabad. In the latter case, whatever one thinks of the logic of the roads network, the rules at least are followed — even the one about seatbelts.
As everywhere, the solution is in enforcing the rules without fear or favour. After all, the announcement that licences would be checked and there would be no Rs50 muk muka sent people scurrying to get them. The traffic police could start with more boots on the ground, and more institutional support. Because more than them, the signal for a clean-up needs to come from higher up the food chain. Unfortunately, the commitment of many in these ranks to the rule of law in letter and in spirit seems demonstrably tenuous. As ever, the ball is in their court.
The writer is a member of staff.
Published in Dawn, November 9th, 2015
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