Roads or deathtraps?

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Karachi's roads have become a recurring scene of tragedy. In 2024, nearly 500 people lost their lives and thousands got injured in traffic accidents - many involving dumpers, water tankers and other heavy vehicles. These incidents are the predictable outcome of a city run without rules or accountability.

Last week's violence in North Karachi — where residents torched nine heavy vehicles after a biker was injured — was ugly, but hardly surprising. When a system fails to protect its people, anger spills onto the streets. That anger may be misdirected, but it isn't unfounded. This is not about ethnicity. And it would be dangerous to let it become so. Karachi's traffic crisis, as both the ANP and MQM stalwarts pointed out, stems from administrative rot, not ethnic fault lines.

To blame communities is to let the real culprits walk free. The problem begins with enforcement — or the lack of it. Licences for heavy vehicles are handed out without proper testing. Driving under the influence is rarely checked. The roads themselves — broken, narrow and overburdened — are not fit for the volume they carry.

On top of that, the tanker mafia operates with complete impunity, especially during late-night hours. But enforcement alone won't fix what is essentially a structural crisis. Karachi has grown far beyond what its roads were designed for. Poor planning and the unchecked spread of construction have choked the city's arteries. Heavy vehicles now wind through densely packed neighbourhoods, endangering lives at every turn.

The chief minister's recent order to begin random drug testing of drivers is a start, but it must not end there. What Karachi needs is a complete overhaul: stricter regulation of commercial licences, a ban on heavy vehicles during peak hours, investment in road repair, and, crucially, a crackdown on the mafias that believe the law doesn't apply to them.