Plan of action: Traffic police ready to clamp down on school van drivers

Each school will have to send a list of the vans transporting their students

KARACHI: Armed with a plan, the Karachi traffic police are now completely prepared to launch their campaign against school van drivers flouting traffic rules. Or so they say. The van drivers, however, believe otherwise, casually dismissing the directives as yet another time-bound campaign to garner media publicity.

For now, however, the police have directed all the schools in Karachi to send them a list of the number of vans that transport their students. The direction came in a meeting comprising all the superintendents, deputy superintendents and section officers of the traffic police, chaired by the traffic DIG, Amir Ahmed Shaikh, on Sunday evening.

Addressing the law enforcers, Shaikh said that school van owners will have to remove the compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) kits from their vehicles before August 21. He added that all school buses should be painted yellow, or at least be labelled 'school bus'. "The presence of a caretaker or conductor, besides the driver in a school van is mandatory," he said, adding that no school van driver or conductor may smoke on the job.

Sharing rough estimates of the total number of school vans, he said there were around 18,000 in Karachi. The DIG said that with the help of the Anti-Car Lifting Cell (ACLC), they have drafted a Performa for the acquisition of details regarding school vans, which would be distributed among the schools of Karachi.

"The school managements will have to fill those forms and submit them to us, which would tell us how many school vans have detached CNG and LPG cylinders and have hired a conductor in their vans," he said, adding that the drivers violating rules will be charged under Section 113 of the Motor Vehicle Ordinance.

On a question regarding the strategy with regards to unregistered schools, of which there are more than a few in Karachi, he responded that they would be dealt with in the second phase of the operation. "In the second phase, we will also ask the bus drivers to install trackers in the school vans for the safety of the children," he said.

He also asked all the traffic police wardens to monitor school vans flouting laws but not to impound them with students inside the bus. "Let the driver drop all the students first and then take action against them," he said, adding that the two-days off on Saturday and Sunday would be given as a chance to those van drivers flouting traffic rules to change their ways according to the law or else they would be put behind bars from Monday, August 24.

Speaking about the ongoing operation against Qingqis, overloading in public buses, signal jumping and one-way violations, he said that 350 bus drivers had been sent to jail for overloading and boarding passengers on the rooftop in the last three days. He also said that their operation was against traffic rules violators and it was across the board. "There are people even in Defence and Clifton who violate traffic rules. Arrest them too," he ordered traffic police wardens.

The impounded Qingqis, according to the officer, would be returned to their owners after verification of the motorbikes by the ACLC, as there were complaints that those motorbikes were stolen. "If the ACLC clears the two-wheelers, we will return them to their owners after detaching the structures behind them," he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 17^th, 2015.