Every road is a death trap. Why?

Treacherous roads keep on killing passengers and pedestrians without any discrimination every day across the county, thanks to the blatant violations of traffic rules, bad conditions of roads and tendency to jaywalk. 

Photo: Courtesy Dawn

Road crashes are not regarded big news in the Pakistani news outlets unless the deceased or injured include high profile people. 

On Monday, the road crash in Khairpur district of Sindh claimed 20 lives and left seven others injured when a passenger van and a coal-filled truck crashed into each other. 

More people will die in the coming days because of the gravity of their life-threatening injuries. Police officials citing the survivors said the van driver was trying to overtake the truck on Tehari Bypass but the move ended up slamming into the lorry. The ensuing impact landed both vehicles off the road and into a ditch. The battered van soon became the scene of blood and death. The wreckage and the mounds of coal resisted the attempts of rescuers to pull out the survivors and bodies. Cutters were being arranged to cut the vehicles to rescue the passengers. The injured have been shifted to the Khairpur Civil Hospital, while the bodies have handed over to heirs. 

With this, the crash case will be closed.

Since deceased and survivors are all commoners, the story is unlikely to grab a followup.  

Road safety needs to be taken as a priority. Safe travelling stems from following traffic rules. The top rule of the traffic rules is careful driving which the forces responsible for disciplining the road never take into consideration. Obtaining a driving license is a matter of a couple of visits to the traffic office concerned and greasing the palm of the official in charge. In the developed countries, the driving license is issued after a rigorous scrutiny, while the suspension of one’s driving license is considered a tough punishment. One feels paralysis if their license is suspended or revoked. But our roads are full of untrained, underage reckless drivers, who take pleasure in breaking the laws. Traffic wardens face official action if they try to enforce the law in letter and spirit. Weeks ago, rickshaw drivers blocked roads in Lahore in protest at wardens’ war on traffic rule violators. They dispersed after getting assured that they would be let off if the violation was “minor” one. That is insane. On what scale, one can weigh a violation a minor or a major one. Similarly, when the Karachi police announced no mercy for the motorcyclists without the safety helmet, the media dubbed it a violation of motorcyclists’ rights.

Jaywalkers also contribute to road deaths. Pedestrian bridges on Lahore roads have been used very seldom since their construction, thanks to the popular trend of crossing the road while signalling the vehicles running on high speed to slow and stop in the middle of the road. In case of a road crash, jaywalkers are always taken a victim, not an offender.

The government is the prime culprit in road deaths. While successive governments have resorted to coming up costly road projects, no attention is paid to the people bleeding and dying on roads. The procedure to get compensation for road rash is in place but hardly the victims invoke the law for the complexity of the procedure and simply their lack of awareness about the law.

Every road death is a murder. No doubt.

Who is the murderer: jaywalking, rash driving, pothole-infested road or government’s lack of attention towards the road killing?

An investigation into every case can lead to the murderer.