Roadmap for safer roads

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Preventable road accidents have become far too common in Sindh, and the heaviest toll is being paid by ordinary citizens. Reckless drivers, unfit heavy-duty vehicles, substandard rickshaws and unchecked violations have turned the province's roads into death traps. The Sindh cabinet's approval of a comprehensive road safety reform package, then, is a welcome — if long overdue — move.

The reforms are extensive and appear serious: a crackdown on fake number plates and tinted windows, a ban on unfit rickshaws and decades-old buses, mandatory fitness certificates for all commercial vehicles, and the introduction of certified pre-licence training for heavy transport drivers. These are not token gestures and aim at the root causes of the carnage. But the litmus test will be in implementation.

Too often, well-meaning policies have collapsed under poor enforcement and political interference. This time, it must be different. The decision to double fines for government vehicles, for example, signals an intention to hold even the privileged accountable. But that intention will mean little unless fines are actually imposed and collected.

Moreover, the proposal to establish specialised traffic courts is a step in the right direction. A clogged judicial system cannot deliver swift justice to traffic violators. Similarly, the deployment of an e-challan system and surveillance cameras could help eliminate arbitrary policing, provided the digital systems are protected from manipulation and function transparently.

But technology is no substitute for political will. Crackdowns cannot be episodic. Banning 25-year-old intercity vehicles and those over 20 years on interprovincial routes will only make a difference if transport unions do not receive backdoor exemptions.

The Sindh cabinet's roadmap is ambitious, but it is also achievable. What matters now is sustained, visible action coupled with stringent implementation. Only time will tell if this is the turning point where lives are no longer lost to indifference. Let the road ahead be safer.