Traffic police seek ideas from university students to enforce rules

Karachi
The Karachi Traffic Police asked the university students on Wednesday to come up with new ideas to help the department enforce traffic rules in the city.
The call for new ideas came from Dr Ameer Ahmed Shaikh, the deputy inspector general (DIG) of the traffic police.
He was speaking at a seminar ‘Road Accidents due to Breach of Traffic Rules’, which was organised by the Department of Mass Communication and Media Studies at the Greenwich University.
Shaikh said people died more in road accidents than in terrorist attacks or natural disasters, and around 230,000 people lost their lives in the tsunami of 2004, but 1.2 million were killed in traffic accidents in the same year.
He said the failure of motorists to follow regulations was the main reason for the large number of accidents. He described poor vehicle maintenance, which often resulted in sudden mechanical failures on the road like break fail, as the second major cause of such crashes.
The DIG traffic noted that 33,000 road accidents were reported in the metropolis in 2014, and 1,150 of them were fatal. He said 57 percent of the victims were motorcyclists and, regrettably, 90 percent of them were youngsters.
“These are reported figures and we know that there have been unreported accidents as well,” he said. “I request all the bikers to wear a good helmet as most of the causalities have been due to the head smashing against footpaths and vehicles.”
There was an interactive session between university students and the DIG.
Answering a question about bribery, he said every member of society had to help the traffic department to end that evil practice.
“You don’t give any bribe if you are not a violator,” he commented. “Both violators and corrupt traffic sergeants are the beneficiaries of bribery and this has to end at both ends.”
Shaikh said the department was installing a technological system to minimise interaction between public and traffic sergeants.
“We are striving to make an automatic system to impose fines after taking pictures of law violators,” he said. “We have sent 116 tickets to violators at their homes and surprisingly 80 percent of them were paid, which has encouraged us to introduce the system on a larger scale.”
The DIG said Pakistani people followed all the rules and regulations in countries where technology had allowed the authorities to apprehend the culprits at once. He said the Pakistani society also needed the latest technology to enforce traffic laws.
Answering a query about VIP movements, he said there was a dire need for both the citizens and VIPs to follow the rules.
“I know VIP movement creates a lot of troubles for the public, but sometimes security issues compel us to arrange special arrangements for high-profile personalities,” he said. “It is an evolutionary process to minimise the VIP culture, but the authorities need to take remarkable steps to resolve the issue.”
Shaikh quoted an incident in which a sergeant was suspended after he dared to stop the vehicle of an MNA’s daughter while her driver was trying to jump the red light.
The DIG said he intervened in the matter and took up the matter with the authorities to get the sergeant reinstated in order to give a message that the department would not compromise on performing duties and no illegal order would be accepted anymore.
He however admitted that it was a complicated process for him as it was a difficult task to fight against corrupt authorities in the system.
He lauded the organiser, Tahira Tariq, and her department for arranging the event to mark Global Safety Road Day, and informed the audience that the Karachi Traffic Police was also celebrating the day in cooperation with a multinational company in the metropolis.
He also appreciated the presentation and the video made by Greenwich students to convey their concerns about traffic violations.