The traffic police / traffic wardens should be taken to task. Arent they watching what is happening on the roads? Non development budgets should be cut to divert money to pubic transportation. The driver should refuse to drive if the students are hanging on to the bus or sitting on the roof.

Why doesn't the supreme court take sue-motto notice of the responsible people for running and managing transport in this country (includes owners, traffic etc). Will someone ever take these people to task.

this has to be looked after now; without any delay, in order to secure the lives and health of the generations to come. we will see huge increase in population in next 30 years and our transport needs have to be met with that pace!

Government should arrange extra transport to and from school times specially for students with strict disciplines, and parents must keep an eye on their children using public transport.

Traffic police and wardens will get beaten by youngsters and the driver will have his bus broken or burnt, its the matter of upbringing and mob culture.

It's very very dangerous and must be dealt with as soon as possible. I remember hanging on the sides of buses myself. There were times when the bus was going at 60 km/h and I was hanging out, due to lack of space, by mere one arm and just one foot at the edge of the door. Barely got away with getting myself banged on to another bus which passed right next to me.

It makes me very sad to know about loss of precious lives. I am unable to understand comments about upbringing? It has nothing to do with upbringing. This is just general state of a struggling country. Rich gets richer and poor is being driven to death. In civilized country's Govt provides enough school buses and parking is built before buildings. Pakistan's problem apart from suffering from an identity crisis and being indulged in a sinful western culture is growing population. Amount of money being spent on vulgar media channels can easily be spent to build the infrastructure. I live in a civilized modern country and we had 210 deaths on road last year and Government officials are cracking down on driving laws as 210 deaths is far too many for this country. Why is the price of life different in my homeland? Then again, there were these injustices because of which I and many others left that country!

This has nothing to do with upbringing? If I had a child, I'd make sure he doesn't go to school standing on top of a bus. What I won't do is let the government tell me how to raise my child. You suffer from some seriously inverted logic my dear friend.

there should be no compromise on such horible overloading in any case.govt must take action for such a unforbidable action.

you can never ignore your future which is with young students who will bear country so take care of everything related to them otherwise you will spoil your future.

how miserable this scene is? the legal bodies took some serious steps to stop these voilations of traffic rules.many mishappenings occured due to these overloadings on the roof of buses. recently incident of 5 students near jinnah hospital underpass in Lahore is the sad example of these overloadings.

Its just our South Asian mentality or commonly known as the "Sab Chelega" mentality. Whether it is buses, trains or motorcycles or even bicycles, We South Asians couldn't give "two hoots" to traffic rules or law and order. When there is a major accident and when many lives are lost then We South Asians blame everyone else but ourselves.

@SULTAN Saqib says: May 25, 2010 at 15:04 Traffic police and wardens will get beaten by youngsters and the driver will have his bus broken or burnt, its the matter of upbringing and mob culture. Kiwirocker's reply was in response to this statement. If u don't mind me saying, u were too quick to judge. May I respectfully suggest a bit more tolerance. Thank you.

I once talked to a Traffic Sergeant on Shahrah-e-Faisal in Karachi and I told/showed him over-speeding and the buses running way over capacity and people sitting on the roof-tops and bus-lane not being used by buses but by everybody else. First he thanked me to point out these things. Then he said, I wasn't the only one who thinks that a step must be taken. However, if he tried to stop anyone, there could be a small riot or threat or both. Threat by the mob or by the people who own the transport system including even ministers and member of parliament or high bureaucrats and such. We are a society of thugs and thieves. Things are bad at the root. Roots needs to be uprooted!

Most mini buses and buses are own and invested by police with their hard earned Rizq e Hallal. Government of Pakistan may pass the law to prevent people riding on top of a bus or a mini bus but government has no teeth to enforce the law.

These traffic problems and the resulting fatal cosequences boil down to: 1. Daily need for one to move for unavoidable bread and butter reasons; 2. Lack of self-discipline; 3. Lack of traffic organisation due to the lack of responsability of the public authorities, shamelessly cut off from the public and the lack of material means.

why not just make busses that have a rooftop on which you can not sit or climb to?

I am afraid that travelling by public transport in many parts of the subcontinent is dangerous and could cause great damage to one's life and or limb. But the trouble is that there are no resources available in these countries to provide for even the minimum comfort and safety of the people. There are just too many people and not enough money to buy, for example, more buses. The main and root causes are three: fast multiplication of the population, inadequate productivity of the societies and national priorities set by the ruling elite. Unless these issues are addressed, human life would remain the same, cheap and not worth diverting resources to save it at the expense of other necessities of the society as decided by the ruling class, necessities such as expenditure on defense, nuclear weapons, ICBMs and such deadly killer weapons including police for the protection of the VIPs.

What a tragedy ! I hold the government responsible. The education and transport ministers should be taken to task. Those police men running around the VIPs should be accountable ! This must be tackled on priority basis. No blame games.

My dear Sultan, Inverted logic or not... Its upbringing as well as the laws of the country that matter in this scenario. Its completely illegal to travel on top of a bus, let alone on such death tracks of roads that we have and the drivers which are usually high on drugs. Pakistan has one of the highest mortality rate in the world as far as the road accidents are concerned.

Unimaginable lunacy is for those who grew up in safe and secure land with law and order. This is a way of life. We are not going to wait for a Thomas Jefferson to come with the idea of pursuit of happiness and then watch him bickering with Madison and Adams just to install it in the U.S.constitution. We are also not going to wait then for some one with an idea of the roller coaster ride in some safe resort area with admission fee in order to seek lunacy perhaps imaginable. This all appears tedious. We know better. We seek happiness everwhere and at every corner. Considering the nature of the drivers and the absence of law and order in the form of police and the fun we had in the bus ride, it is a mystrey that so many of us are still alive. It was fun while the unimaginable lunacy lasted in Karachi.

We need to look into the taxation system. Our Automobile Industry is playing a role in this game. If we have more buses, we would have less cars, where would the Suzuki, Honda and Toyota sell their cars? I think we need to look into this and urge the government to reduce taxes on large buses, instead of reducing taxes on luxury cars.

My very very dear independant media you have great responsibility to highlight many many problems such as like this. Pl. bring your leaders, authorities and or responsible agencies up on the stage and make them to answer , face masses and if the masses are educated they would not have such leaders.It is a chain, group or a gang of incompitant people -???--Only honest media and educated masses can put them right . Still it is not late . YOU CAN DO IT , WE CAN DO IT .---

Solution lies in family planning and checking population growth. If this issue was tackled forty years back today we would have not faced shortage of food, gas, electricity, schools, hospitals, housing and transport. Government dont have resources to provide necessay ameneties for the large population in cities hence it has to close eyes from seeing seens that ultimately results in accidents.

Its so typical to bring "sinful western culture" into every possible argument, even if the issue is about the traffic and transport situation in Pakistan. You need to realize that you cannot blame all of Pakistan's problems on the West or Western Culture.The Govt of Pakistan is to blame here and thats th only thing that should concern us.

Two questions: first, did you mean a double decker bus? Second, how will that avoid accidents when drivers take risky chances of passing through an underpass?

Very rightly said and put I think we have another Aayaz Amir comming up. Thanks to Dawn.

we need to educate our masses on this ,please just not adhere it to blogging let this fume of awareness be a part of every citizen through media. i appreciate such blogs. God Bless all !

Sultan: Read Farooq's comment and learn to hold a civilized argument friend!You can not blame upbringings when parents do not have means and measures to bring up their children. Which parent in world will make their children stand around buses in dangerous positions? It is easy to point fingers are parents however reality is that Pakistani Government is responsible. Mishal: If Pakistani corrupt politicians and other role models will waste less time on visiting fashion shows and creating cable TV channel empires then probably they can spend some time planning Pakistani infrastrure.! You obviously are one of Western culture supports( My apology if I am judging you), however sadly I grew up in USA, Europe and reside in West but still believe every problem happening in Pakistan is due to the fact we have moved away from core Islamic values and wonderful Pakistani norms

Traffic police should fine the driver in such case. If we start following our law, life can become heaven. Unfortunately people don

Not rocket science. Make it illegal to ride on the top of bus, buy more buses, and enforce the law. Seems to work in just about every other country. Also - rather than complain on the internet how about voting some people out of office who have chronically shown they can't/won't/ or are incapable of looking after the needs of the people. Your suppose to be a Democracy - your vote is your weapon - use it.

Very sadly it happened in lahore, in such situation people destroy buses and burn tires to block the road. But nothing effective is done by government and again we see such incident after some days.

The solution to this problem is bigger and more buses. I am also a daily traveler of these mini buses and every body i feel insulted and humiliated. I wonder why we cannot have bigger and more buses, so that every one can travel easily and in an honourable way. They way these buses carry humans, treated like animals in these buses. No human dignity or no prestige. Why all these problems are with us (third world countries), because we don't like comfort, we don't like to live honorably and above all we don't want to solve problem. The solution of this problem is easy and simple, BIGGER AND MORE BUSES. Once a traveler in the buses in which i was also traveling said very rightly "Is qoam ki buses bari nahi ho rahi hein tu dimag kaise baree honge".

I seriously believe that family planning is part of the solution but that's not the end of it. people need to raise their children in such a way that they are responsible. people are aware of rules but simply just flout them. point in case being that everybody throws garbage on roads and in the sewers. in the end when it gets messy and blocked people blame the government, and surprisingly educated people do this as well. my point is that people know that there is a transport problem yet they will not leave early. they know about the constraints but fail to change their life style. at the same time the government should work to provide a viable solution. this leads to maximum efficiency. resources will always be scarce and to have everything my own way is simply not possible and also in the case of the accident in Lahore i blame the parents of the children who did not educate their own children how to stay safe. it could have been possible that the driver was unaware that there are children on the top. committing such an obvious traffic violation was wrong i.e driving through underpass and having passengers on top, but at the end u have to save your own self first before any body can save you.

It's sad to see loss of life, especially young life! Riding on bus/truck roof tops in the searing heat of the day may be cooling or exhilarating but it should be outlawed. Hit the offending drivers hard where it hurts them the most, in their wallets! Fine them on the spot, this should be relatively easy for our police as they are used to extracting money out of the drivers anyway!

You kidding! It will only give the cops another reason to take bribe. Unfortunately in our country and ALL Muslim countries, a human life or rather a Muslim human life sadly has lost its value.

I would say you are very articulate, when i go India I do feel these complete freedon and things do look beautiful unless you donot have money or unfortunate things happens to you.(like crime or hospital need) then you feel how wonderful USa is. Still we are what we are. It will take long time. ok Now let us open our religious book and concentrate there.

Penalties and strict traffic rules are only solution for this !! But these penalties and strict rules lead to corruption. Instead of paying tax people will bribe the officials in charge and get away from penalties. I dont blame government for this, forming rules is far easy and its not rocket science and a straight copy from western traffic rules can get the job done in few weeks but implementing these rules matters most. This is the typical sub-continental problem, I'm from india and corruption is the social evil. When you have strict rules in place, corruption takes the center stage.

I think we all need to realize that we ourselves are the problem and solution. We always talk about bad teachers, bad policemen, bad businessmen, bad politicians and bad bureaucrats. We need to stand back and say we are bad citizens who don't follow our own laws. It's not the polce's fault any more than it's the fault of politicians- it's our own fault. We have to own up to our own mistakes and fix ourselves. We owe it to Pakistan. We have been blessed with the most beautiful country. Let's show the world we deserve it!

Bottom line, nothing will change.

They had their chance to vote and guess what twice. Dasti being the prime example. Serious leadership is lacking who take sound decisions and can guide common people on this elementary stuff. Current lot of polititian is not able to distinguish between people and herd of sheep.

Nobody really want to change the system in PAK.Nobody is serious.Citizens assume that "All is well".People in PAK feel proud when they buy Chineese brand cheap gas generator.People in PAK feel extra proud when they employ extremely underpaid servants,maids and drivers. People in PAK feel comfort,proud and relaxed when they break the law.

Transport business was destroyed by first Bhutto regime in seventies, when students were provided almost free ride, without any help from government exchequre. Since that time, the students and transporters are at war against each other. Inter city buses, in which students are not allowed, or they pay their full fare, encounter very few problems. Only on those routes, where non AC buses function, pose big problem for general public. Over loading, travel on roof top and other illegal activities cannot be stopped, until and unless, free loaders pay their full fare.

When the next bus is after half an hour and the chances are it will be as full as this one then you go and sit on the top. Dangerous yes..can people by themselves stop doing it NO..That is why human societies have developed laws!

Bad governance is solely responsible for this culture in Pakistan. Provide them more buses the same commuters will travel seat by seat.

I fail to understand the double standards we have. For instance, buses cost money to run and buy. As a simple engineer, i can actually calculate how many buses we need per route. How much will it cost me to run it. Fuel costs and stuff will be incorporated in this simple layman report. From their, i can actually bring out the money or investment required. Our banks are very nice to anyone having a cash tree so thus i'll be provided a huge loan with very easy terms of paybacks. So in short, even i can run an effective bus system or company whatever you may like it. Now with more buses, the people will have an option atleast to wait for a bus to come by which is not overloaded but being an impatient nation, we will jump into a bus which is over-crowded. Who is at fault? EVERYONE. Wardens started well but eventually the fear subsided and they also turned into our local police boys. My brother remarked sarcastically that I should not be this optimistic, just give it a few months. Now everyday we have accidents after accidents. If I drive my car, i'll try to leave a gap between the vehicle in the front but it will be filled in by either a car (mehran type mostly) or a over zealous moterbike rider. Infact i'll be the one suffering as they won't budge even if they run out of fuel. The point is, its easy. Bringing the good we can, just go to shaukat khanum hospital. Made by a Pakistani. Not run by the government. For every route we have, atleast four different companies with ten buses per route should run. Only then we can control this mayhem we live in.

Start cycling. Its Great.

It is impossible to change this system, In fact "I" do not want to change it, just let it be!

This mess is caused by the transport mafia, who's tactics of intimidation and fear-mongering are largely committed by a certain ethnic group.

Been there done that. I have been on top of the bus many times myself, why, the answer is simple I needed to get from one to another and if I wait for another bus will be filled as well so why not take the first one. The answer to the problem lies in subways and bullet trains running as frequently as needed. Electric trains will be the best. Nuclear reactors must be set up to avoid power outage. All the best

Opening up religious books is something we have been doing for ages. Then we go on memorization. We go on forever. Meanwhile, we have a history of invasions and loot and massacre and plunder. In the novel "Hindoo Holiday" by J.R. Ackerley, the Maharaja is at ease holding a darbar or entertaining a host from Imperial England. It is the guest who observes the ruins around the palace. Not very far, by the way. Considering the nature of the history of our beloved Indian sub-continent, is it possible to simply opening up religous books? For what?

Really agree with the gap between the car comment... You cannot have a gap even if you try to

For the time being the children on top of the bus might be enjoying themselves but like you said such dangerous and stupid acts may be fun for the child but can lead to dire consequences. Like the example you gave about children being killed which is horrific and a big tragedy. Obviously stricter laws are necessary, bus drivers should be fined, more buses should be available for the people definitely. The children are too small to understand or have sense but the older people and the bus driver should talk some sense into the children or stop the bus until people come down or kick these people outside the bus. Because if the bus driver gets into an accident and people God Forbid get serious injury or are dead he is to blame and will go to jail. Hefty fines should be issued as well as traffic police should be vigilant and stop bus drivers for allowing passengers to sit on top of the roof. Unfortunately there is so much Corruption in Pakistan and as mentioned in other comments there is a transport mafia which might not allow this to happen. Because to the bus driver more passengers he takes more money he makes, so I guess the driver of the bus and of course the police don't give a damn about the lives of people. The Government and Transport system will take no responsibility and people have to rely on themselves for their own health and safety. I believe people sitting on roof tops should be stopped but in Pakistan everything goes. You cannot say anything to anyone as everyone has their own life and people don't want to told what to do and what not to do. For example, breaking street lights, over-speeding, driving on wrong side of road, double-parking, 5 to 6 people on 1 motor cycle, wheeling on motor cycle lying down with no helmet, and breaking all traffic rules that one can imagine. If you cannot enforce these and other traffic violations how on Earth can you stop people from sitting on the roof of a bus.

We behave similarly on this side of border. Though in Delhi we do not have children sitting on roof of bus, but one does come across a large number of autos (three wheelers) carrying 10 children and top loaded with school bags. Every turn brings the auto precariously close to turning turtle. Some accidents do happen, but practice continues merrily. We refuse to learn from such unfortunate incidents. One wonders at callous approach to human life in particular of our own or that of our child.

All, This blog item and the other news item referred highlights the issue in no uncertain terms.i.e. we need subways/trams, or circular rail in all major cities. However the sad part is that there is no quick solution. Only God knows how many times the masses of this country will be tricked by the likes of Raja Pervaiz Ashraf.. making promises left and right of a new transportation system...It has been almost a decade since I am hearing of mass transit system in Lahore but we got in the end was the RING ROAD. Go figure!

The solution is not to have no roof on any public transport, they should all be open tops. This will also provide relief from heat inside and will provide fresh air to the suffocating public in these transports.

These matters are not as simple as they look. Drivers of our public transport do not recieve any formal driving training nor are they formally tested before handing them a bus or a van and scores of lives to play with.Fault doesnt lie with the govt alone transport owners are equally to be blamed.