\u2022 Many accidents can be avoided by diverting heavy traffic to Northern Bypass, moot told
\n\u2022 SSP claims media \u2018sensationalises\u2019 issues in Karachi<\/p>\n
KARACHI: Rights activists and members of civil society have said that the increasing number of fatal road accidents in the city and the poor state of traffic laws\u2019 enforcement are a violation of human rights which the state has failed to safeguard.<\/p>\n
They expressed these views at a dialogue titled \u201cTraffic and Transport Issues in Karachi \u2014 Proposed Solutions,\u201d organised by the Concerned Citizens Alliance (CCA) at the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) House here on Friday. Dr Mirza Ali Azhar moderated the event.<\/p>\n
Speaking on the occasion, Vice Chairman Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Qazi Khizer said the state of Pakistan is responsible for the safety and security of every citizen\u2019s life as per the Constitution but it has always backed away from this responsibility, adding that traffic and transport issues in Karachi are a prime example of its failure.<\/p>\n
He attributed the sudden surge in accidents involving heavy vehicles, in which hundreds of people have been killed, largely to corruption by traffic police.<\/p>\n
If one only talked about the heavy vehicles that come from the port, one observes that the trucks and trailers are coming from the Karachi Port round the clock, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut instead of going from the Northern Bypass, the vehicles travel through the city from Liaquatabad and go to Sohrab Goth, all in the presence of traffic police officials who take bribe for allowing them. Every truck pays its share of bribe to traffic policemen,\u201d he alleged and questioned why the Northern Bypass was built by spending millions of rupees if it wasn\u2019t supposed to be used for such traffic.<\/p>\n
If the law is strictly implemented and the heavy traffic diverted, many accidents can be prevented, he believed.<\/p>\n
Similarly, he said that there was corruption in licence and fitness departments of the traffic police because of which anyone who pays a bribe gets a licence and the vehicle, despite being totally unfit, is declared fit.<\/p>\n
Mr Khizer also said that the government had not provided decent and affordable public transport in the metropolis.<\/p>\n
Therefore, the vast majority of citizens have to use motorcycles, the number of which makes 65 per cent of the total number of vehicles in Karachi. \u201cThis too is the responsibility of the state,\u201d he stressed.<\/p>\n
PMA President Shoaib Sobani in a presentation pointed out several factors that led to rising traffic accidents, with the most important being lax enforcement of traffic laws, poor road infrastructure, unprofessional behaviour of traffic officials and carless attitude of road users who violate traffic rules.<\/p>\n
Architect and urban planner Arif Hasan said all these issues were part of a lager cultural attitude \u201csab chalta hai [everything works]\u201d which affects laws and their enforcement as well as the proper execution of projects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u2022 Many accidents can be avoided by diverting heavy traffic to Northern Bypass, moot told \u2022 SSP claims media \u2018sensationalises\u2019 issues in Karachi KARACHI: Rights activists and members of civil society have said that the increasing number of fatal road accidents in the city and the poor state of traffic laws\u2019 enforcement are a violation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6116,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6117,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6115\/revisions\/6117"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}