Children and chickens

Letter March 01, 2016
Limits must be set for van owners and traffic police should penalise overloaded vehicles to ensure safety of students

RAWALPINDI: If one rides about during morning hours as children pack into buses, school vans and rickshaws, a parallel can be drawn between kids stuffed into rickshaws or vans and the poultry vans delivering soon-to-be slaughtered chicken by butchers in the local meat shops.

It seems like rickshaws and van owners have the lust to make more and more money by stuffing as many children as possible, into their passenger vehicles. Most children using vans and rickshaws are from lower-middle socioeconomic class families whose parents cannot afford other means of transport and thus, they are forced to face the risk of accident due to an overloaded vehicle.

The safety of each student is the responsibility of school authorities but they often shirk. In Western countries, school buses are well-designed, manufactured and specifically used for student transport only. In Pakistan, there is no check and balance system for school transportation safety.

Authorities must set limits for van owners and the traffic police should penalise overloaded vehicles to ensure the safety of the innocent students. These efforts must involve parents, transport owners, schools, traffic police and the city administration, alike. If a student gets injured during an accident in an overloaded school van, the school at which they study should be held responsible.

Ammara Javed

Published in The Express Tribune, March 1st, 2016.

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