Traffic deterrence

Road accidents in Punjab have become a daily threat to life. From reckless lane cutting to helmet-less riding, the highways and city arteries of Lahore and beyond have turned into arenas of carelessness. In such a climate, a crackdown was inevitable and the government has started it through traffic cameras. Deterrence, in principle, is a public good. Without it, rules become suggestions and every red signal becomes an invitation to gamble with fate.

But last week's arrests — over 3,100 people in 72 hours, many of them schoolchildren — reveal what happens when enforcement jumps ahead of preparation. The police may have meant to send a strong message, yet what citizens received was something very different. Motorbike riders, who constitute the bulk of Pakistan's urban commuters, were treated as offenders rather than as the product of a decades-old system that has never invested in road safety culture.

The subsequent chaos outside Lahore's police stations was inevitable. Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz's decision to halt the arrests of minors may be a sane course correction but it cannot come at the behest of thousands of lives lost to road accidents. The least the students can do is wear helmets for protection.

The purpose of deterrence is to reshape behaviour, not to destroy potential. Road safety reform is a journey and Pakistan is still at step one. We cannot leap straight to step five and expect society to transform overnight. That does not mean we retreat to leniency. Lives are lost every day on our roads because drivers believe they can get away with anything. Fear of consequence must exist. A balanced approach is not weakness but a strategy. Let the crackdown continue where the danger is deliberate. But allow room for education and system-building for those who are simply navigating a culture that never taught them better.