LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Tuesday directed the chief traffic officer (CTO) to start enforcing the condition of wearing safety helmet on pillion riders from Dec 1 without any discrimination.

The court further directed the CTO to issue challan tickets to motorcyclists having no side mirrors on their bikes.

Earlier, Punjab Safe City Authority’s Chief Operating Officer Akbar Nasir told the court that there had been a visible decline in violation of traffic rules following the start of e-challan. He pointed out that around Rs30 million had been collected under the head of e-challan.

CTO Liaqat Malik stated that traffic rules had been strictly implemented by the police. He said 324,000 motorcyclists had been issued challan tickets so far for not wearing helmet. He claimed that a number of motorcyclists remained unhurt during road accidents due to helmets.

The court expressed satisfaction over the performance of the traffic police and directed the CTO to continue implementation of traffic laws in letter and spirit. It ordered the officer to start issuing challans for not wearing helmet by pillion riders as well from Dec 1.

Previously, the court had directed the inspector general of Punjab police to strictly implement restriction of wearing helmets in the whole province.

Several lawyers had filed petitions for the implementation of traffic laws citing an increase in the death of motorcyclists in road accidents.

One of the petitioners contended that a report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) revealed that in Pakistan 25.3 deaths per 100,000 occur due to road accidents, which is much higher than international ranking. He said as per the WHO fact sheet of 2011, more than 90 per cent world mortalities on roads occur in low and middle income countries. The petitioners asked the court to order the police to implement all traffic laws, including wearing of helmet by the motorcyclists in the province.

Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2018