Should not the traffic police capture on camera and penalise SUV vehicles of ministers and unregistered motorbikes
KARACHI: As many people may have noticed, at major intersections in Karachi, such as the one at Three Swords — the main artery to the affluent Clifton and DHA areas — during slack timings in the morning between 10am to 12pm, there are white uniformed cops holding high resolution digital cameras taking pictures of vehicles standing at the signals. At first, they look like tourists, lost and so fascinated by the sophisticated roads and traffic of Karachi, that they jump onto the road to capture the photographs. Not to mention the battalion of beggars attacking your car at the traffic lights.
However, that is certainly not the case. Pictures are taken of unfortunate, law-abiding motorists, who stop at traffic lights, but their vehicles may have slightly crossed the nearly-invisible zebra crossing line or the stop line. That could be owed to other distractions at the signal, such as the open manhole with a tree trunk inserted by a good Samaritan, to warn motorists. The traffic cop is the least concerned about that, however.
The traffic police supposedly mail those pictures as evidence of traffic violations, to car owners and the owner has to pay a challan, or else have his vehicle blacklisted. My question is, aren’t there more important things to do than to harass and penalise law-abiding citizens? What about the numberless SUV vehicles of ministers, MNAs and MPAs and the millions of unregistered motorbikes? What about the police mobiles roaming wildly on the roads, nearly thrashing anyone coming in their way, while escorting so-called government VIPs? Aren’t these more pressing issues that should be captured on camera and penalised?
In countries where road rules are implemented, no VIP is exempt. Only then does the law work in its true sense. I request the authorities to stop this blackmail of poor citizens and first rectify the infrastructure, take to task motorists violating major rules — such as crossing red lights and using turning lanes to bypass traffic and then come to the minor violations.
Farrukh Safdar
Published in The Express Tribune, April 15th, 2016.
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