Punjab Police is all set to launch a renewed crackdown against traffic violations, specially driving without licence.
The police had embarked on a similar crackdown across the province three months back.
Punjab Inspector General of Police (IGP) Dr Usman Anwar and Additional IG of Traffic Mirza Faran Baig, while speaking at the Aabshar Khidmat Markaz in Shadman, gave an ultimatum to the citizens driving without licence to be ready for strict legal action. He said the drivers who had not yet obtained licences should be ready to face action.
He added that to facilitate the applicants, all the licence centres of the province had been upgraded with modern resources. The improvements are aimed at ensuring that the driving licences are issued is easily after removal of hurdles through the online driving licence issuance.
In all, 34 laws were amended to facilitate the citizens to the extent that they now only had visit the licence centres for the driving tests. All other facilities had been made available online, the official said.
Usman said that after providing all the facilities regarding driving licences to the citizens, now the time for their checking had come.
In a couple of days, the process of checking the driving licences on the roads will be resumed in all the districts of the province.
Read: LHC orders arrest of motorists driving sans license
He said action will be taken according to the law against those driving without licence. Additional IG Faran Baig said that in the last few weeks, 1.24 million citizens have obtained driving licences.
All licence centers and traffic offices of the province have been equipped with modern facilities and made very comfortable for the citizens. He said the citizens driving without a licence had been enabled to obtain the permit without any delay so that they could protect themselves from legal action.
Before the earlier crackdown, five members of a family, including children, had died after a teenage driver had rammed his vehicle into their a car in Lahore.
The victim family was returning home after visiting relatives.
After the incident, the police had launched a massive crackdown against underage drivers across the province. They even lodged FIRs and also raised the amount of fine imposed on them to Rs2,000.
Gradually, the crackdown starting with action against underage drivers was expanded to violation of one-way traffic and driving motorcycle without helmet. At least eight people died, whereas 1,436 were injured in 1,331 Road Traffic Crashes (RTCs) across Punjab during the last 24 hours.
Out of these, 641 people with serious injuries were shifted to different hospitals, while 795 victims with minor injuries were treated at the incident site by Rescue Medical Teams.
The majority (73%) involved motorbikes.
Furthermore, the analysis showed those 765 drivers, 39 underage drivers, 178 pedestrians, and 501 passengers were among the victims of road traffic crashes. The statistics show that 273 RTCs were reported in Lahore which affected 315 persons placing the Provincial Capital at top of the list followed by 89 Faisalabad in with 97 victims and at third Multan with 81 RTCs and 75 victims.
The details further reveal that 1,444 victims were affected by road traffic crashes including 1,135 males and 309 females, while the age group of the victims shows that 294 were under 18 years of age, 732 were between 18 and 40 years and rest of the 418 victims were reported above 40 years of age.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 17th 2024.
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