Terrorists of another kind

This newspaper once quoted Indian actor Boman Irani as saying: if one has to judge a nation, he should observe how they drive. Going by this standard, we are the worst nation in the world. The flawed government policies gave us traffic congestions but we turned our roads into gridlocks by our uncivilised driving behaviours.

There should be no doubt that successive governments failed to put the city’s traffic and transport system in order. Car leasing by banks on easy terms, coupled with introduction of cheap fuel in the form of CNG, encouraged many to buy their own cars. But the prime reason for the auto boom wasn’t recreation; it was the city’s appalling transport system. Cars were the only alternative.

The former governments — leftist or rightist — didn’t invest in public transport infrastructure, let alone laying down a mass transit network. Today, Karachi is the only mega city of its size without a public transport system.

While population grew on the back of rapid urbanisation, we moved backwards from a mass transit system – the Karachi Circular Railway, trams and wide-bodied government buses – minibuses, small coaches and worst of all Qingqi and most recently those nine-seater rickshaws, customised to meet the city’s growing transportation needs.

It is because of these flawed government policies that gifted us traffic congestion. However, it is our irresponsible driving that added to the problem, turning the already-choked intersections to traffic gridlocks. Almost every busy intersection in the city has become a traffic nightmare as motorists – motorcyclists, cars or heavy vehicles – frequently block each other’s way while trying to rush through the traffic, particularly in peak traffic hours.

Shortly after one leaves for home or work, he/she gets stuck into a traffic congestion that turns into a gridlock in seconds because of ad-hoc or careless driving by a few. The situation is even worse at unmanned intersections or those without a traffic light. Squeezing through the traffic jams, motorists are often found speeding to make up for the lost time, often running into an accident – no wonder why we lose more people to road accidents each day than to terrorist attacks.

It’s high time we behaved like responsible citizens to make our roads safe and hassle-free, at least for our children. It’s not rocket science; we just need to respect each other on the road and follow rules.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 19^th, 2014.