Honest mistake? Lawmaking blunder takes traffic fines back 49 years

Reckless, negligent drivers biggest beneficiaries of the amended penaltie.

KARACHI:

Lawmakers of the Sindh Assembly congratulated each other on Monday for having finally revised the traffic fines after 49 years. Little did they know that instead of increasing the amounts like they had proposed, the latest amendment to ‘Provincial Motor Vehicle Ordinance 1965’ had unwittingly decreased them.

According to a copy of the traffic police challan acquired by The Express Tribune, the existing penalty for overloading passengers is Rs1,000. The new law, however, fixed the penalty at Rs300. Similarly, the traffic police is currently empowered to issue a challan of Rs1,000 to motorists without a driving licence or for unregistered vehicles on the road. The legislators, in their wisdom, brought the fine down to Rs500.



Perhaps the biggest beneficiaries of the new amendment will be the ‘reckless’ and ‘negligent’ drivers, who would now have to pay a fine of Rs500, instead of the previous penalty of Rs2,000. Ironically, the minister for parliamentary affairs, Dr Sikandar Mandhro, had claimed that the penalties were being increased to ‘discourage’ or deter.

There are approximately 52 different categories of fines listed in the law passed by the provincial assembly. Only three of these, namely the penalty for smoke-emitting vehicles, driving with tinted windows and failure to stop for a school bus have been increased.  The rest have either been reduced or retained at the current rates.

Contrary to what MPAs believe, the penalties have already been revised a number of times, claim officials. Only last year, the government had increased the penalties for some of the violations. The informed legislators of the incumbent assembly have, however, overlooked the previous amendments and have revised the fines on the basis of the amounts suggested in the West Pakistan Ordinance 1965, 1975 and 1980.

“For the last four years, I have been deputed at Sunset Boulevard and have issued many tickets worth Rs1,000 to overloaded goods carriers,” a traffic police inspector told The Express Tribune. “The same penalty has been proposed again in the new law passed on Monday.” The penalty for not heeding a slow sign was Rs2,000, while the new law has decreased it to Rs150 - the same as it was in 1965, the official pointed out.

When the anomaly was brought to the notice of officials and lawmakers, they blamed each other. One of the officials even went so far to allege that the revised rates had been proposed to ‘appease’ the transporters. The lawmakers assured, however, they would make the corrections.

The minister for transport, Mumtaz Jakhrani, refuted the allegations and insisted that they had revised the rates for the first time since 1965. When his attention was brought towards the decrease in the penalties, he was quick to say, “I will look into it. It is not a problem for we can always make another amendment if the penalties have been reduced.”

The minister blamed the law department for not drafting the bill in light of the existing fines. Officials of the law department, however, told a different story. “Our job is to review the proposed summary sent by the relevant department and draft it according to legal terminology,” said Bashir Memon, who is deputy law secretary.

During the session, more than a dozen suggestions for amendments came from Muttahida Qaumi Movement MPA Heer Ismail Soho. She had initially suggested increasing the penalties. When asked why the assembly had passed such a law that benefitted traffic violators, she said: “We proposed the amendments to enhance the fines after studying the government’s bill.” She admitted they had no idea that the fines had already been increased and the traffic police was implementing them. “We will take up this issue in the upcoming session,” she promised.



Published in The Express Tribune, April 4^th, 2014.