Tragedies in traffic

Every day horrific stories of people dying in road accidents are increasing. Many of them are the most vulnerable motorcyclists.

Zig zag and in and out of one traffic lane to the other it seems they are acrobats in a circus instead of ordinary motorcyclists driving on a busy Karachi city road where other drivers with similar habits are driving in bigger and more powerful vehicles whose one touch or a little push can send them flying head first into a pavement with of course horrendous results specially if you are not wearing a helmet, which most people are not irrespective of the much hyped drives urging motorcyclists to wear one.

Do you have any idea how many people lose their lives in a year in traffic accidents and how many are wounded with many of them crippled for life? Only last year more than 1,400 Karachiites lost their lives in road accidents and over 18,000 were wounded, and most of the wounded had injuries that made them handicapped.

Do you know the implications of a normal healthy person leading a happy family life enjoying with his kids to suddenly becoming handicapped and instead of being the main pillar of the family becoming a unbearable burden on the very loved ones who looked up to him for support from the daily routines of school dropping and pickup, grocery shopping and once in a while enjoying at the beach.

A crippling accident can change a person’s life forever. He might lose his job and subsequently his children might be kicked out of the school for non-payment of school fees and the daily routine of putting food on the table for the family might suddenly become a herculean task.

There is also the question of medical treatment for the injured and as accident insurance is not commonly available this financial burden also mostly falls on the injured and his family.

There is always this debate going on as to who is responsible for this state of affairs and most of the fingers point at those regulating traffic in Pakistani cities including Karachi.

Just regulating traffic by hand gestures, whistles and shouting is not exactly the job that will change the state of affairs in any Pakistani city including Karachi.

The entire law in letter and spirit should be enforced and in the law vehicle insurance is mandatory and that does not mean a piece of paper issued just to fulfill some formality but to fully compensate the aggrieved party.

No doubt that is why in countries like Canada after an accident all parties involved wait for the police who if there are no serious injuries requiring immediate attention or some laws which have been violated instruct the parties to exchange their insurance information so that all expanses of the aggrieved party can be compensated.

This of course requires police to be educated, well versed with the laws and not looking at every accident as an opportunity to enhance their salary. This also eradicates the necessity of ordinary people becoming judge and jury and start the trial of the drivers involved in the accident.

The trend is that the guilty party is always driving the bigger vehicle. In the most common accidents that involve a car and a motorcyclist the crowds that gather instantly decide that the car driver is the culprit. If a truck crushes a car or a mini-bus rams into a rickshaw yes you guessed it right the bigger vehicle is held responsible irrespective of the circumstances.

I am surprised that over the years traffic management has deteriorated even though this is one department whose faults are the most obvious, given its public exposure and has the most profound effect on our lives.

Motorcycle riders with no or barely readable license plates, expensive cars whose interior is totally blacked out due to black glasses, mini-buses carrying out death defying races on busy roads, trucks laden with iron rods with half of their length hanging out ready to pierce your heart, small Suzukis laden with twice their load capacity swinging from side to side ready to fall on other vehicles near them. Where are the law enforcers for these blatant acts defying all laws and leading to tragedies that ruin entire families for decades?

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024