Traffic chaos

KARACHI: “I have been issued four tickets in a month by the traffic police officials for no reason and I did not commit any violation,” claimed Mehmood, a rickshaw driver.

The disgruntled public transporter told Bol News that the traffic officials have made it a practice to issue tickets. “They just want to mint money and complete their target of imposing challans on drivers.”

Mehmood further said that he spent 12 to 16 hours daily to earn a livelihood for his family. “The traffic police issued tickets ranging from Rs300 to Rs800. I earn Rs500 to Rs700 daily and if they issue a ticket, I pay the fine from my day-long earnings,” he stated.

A senior police official, when asked if the traffic police were given a target of issuing tickets, denied the claim and said that no target was given. “The number of violations is more than the tickets are issued because we do not have that much strength of traffic police officials to issue more tickets,” he added.

Kamran, a commuter, said the traffic police had been minting money by imposing traffic fines. He further said that imposing fines did not yield any positive result in the improvement of traffic regulation. “Imposing huge fines even [has] failed to create fear among motorists.”

Traffic Police DIG Ahmed Yar Chauhan said that there is no solution to the traffic problem unless and until all the institutions concerned coordinate to take steps to improve the management of vehicular traffic. He reiterated his stance of creating awareness among students studying in schools and colleges. “We have to include road traffic rules in the curriculum in schools and colleges so that the new generation can be aware of it.”

Drivers’ behaviour

Besides, he was of the view that the behaviour of drivers matters the most while using roads. “What do we see and do when on the city’s roads?” he asserted adding bluntly, “We have become careless as a nation. We do not follow traffic rules and no one can control one’s behaviour. First, we have to start from ourselves, then we can bring about change in society.”

The police official claimed that the traffic police from time to time launched different campaigns to create awareness about the traffic rules. “We have launched a campaign to create traffic rules awareness in schools and colleges. In connection [with] this, we have held a number of seminars and interactive sessions with the students in schools and colleges so that the new generation could know about the traffic rules as they will use the road in the future.”

We want them to be good road users, he added.

The officer highlighted that each and every person in society has to take the responsibility to follow the traffic rules. “Otherwise, no one can improve the traffic until and unless the mindset of the public about the traffic situation is changed.”

Police’s attitude

Asked if the traffic police should bring change in their own behaviour and become more community friendly, a police officer, asking not to be named, remarked, “Yes. We have been imparting training to our police officials in this regard. This is the digital age and whatever goes on the road is recorded and goes viral so the police have to be more alert and friendlier with the citizens while implementing traffic rules.”

In view of the many constraints, the traffic police said they are left with the only option to impose fines on the violators.

According to the official statistics, the Karachi traffic police issued 3,216,168 tickets in violation of the traffic rules in the year 2020 and 3,878,800 tickets in 2021, which are 662,623 more than the previous year.

Through these tickets, fines worth Rs754,589,600 were imposed in 2020 which soared to Rs902,001,350 in 2021. This is reportedly an increase of Rs147,411,750 as compared to the previous year.

The Karachi traffic police issued tickets to traffic violators amounting to Rs902 million which is a huge amount and it reflects the focus of traffic police on imposing fines rather than improving traffic management.

Replying to a question, a traffic police official said that 30 per cent of the total amount of a fine is allocated for the police official who imposed the fine on the violator. However, the Sindh government has not been disbursing the share of officials for almost the past five years.

The official statistics show that on an average the Karachi traffic police issued 10,626 tickets daily in violation of traffic rules and imposed a fine amounting to Rs2,471,236 daily which means the traffic police make Rs1,716 every minute by imposing fines on motorists.

This again shows that the focus of the Karachi police is on issuing tickets rather than regulating traffic.

A traffic police officer said that the total strength of the traffic police was between 6,000 and 7,000 and the number of vehicles in the metropolis was more than five million including cars, motorcycles, buses, trucks and other vehicles. “On the basis of this figure, on an average a traffic police official should regulate 770 vehicles, which is practically impossible,” he argued.

“It is hard to regulate vehicular traffic with the meagre number of police strength.” However, we regulate the traffic at all busy points, besides this, we also manage the VVIP movements at the same time, he clarified.

Moreover, the traffic police officials say mismanagement of the city’s traffic affairs has multiple reasons. Traffic police put all the blame for traffic mismanagement on civic agencies for poor infrastructure, dilapidated roads, open manholes, flushing out sewage from outdated drainage pipes, which hinders the flow of vehicular traffic.

Parking in the city’s downtown area, busy marketplaces and other crowded places was another problem. When motorists do not find parking, they park their vehicles at wrong places which causes traffic jams, the police official complained.

Traffic police officials also say that ill-planned traffic engineering added to the miseries of motorists and motorcyclists, forcing them to violate the one-way rule. What the traffic police could do in this situation was to issue tickets and impose fines. “We are simply doing our job”, a senior traffic police official concluded.