DIG Traffic Syed Pir Muhammad Shah said this while explaining the efficacy of new traffic rules at a programme organised by the Urban Resource Centre (URC) on Tuesday evening. The event was chaired by eminent town planner and architect Arif Hasan.

Mr Shah said traffic of any city reflects the character and behaviour of its people, and bringing about even a little bit of improvement in it is a humungous task.

“The government faced a problem after November [2024] when the number of [road] accidents skyrocketed. It rang alarm bells. Its symptoms could be identified but its root cause needed to be addressed,” he said.

“The other issue which I faced after joining the department was that I started receiving messages from acquaintances and even from unknown numbers about the police’s misconduct, bribery etc. During meetings, my officers would give a different reason. They would say that unless we enforce the law, how will discipline be maintained! Then the issue of attitude came to the fore. Even if there’s an honest police officer around, you can’t monitor him 24/7,” he added.

Shedding light on figures, he said the volume of vehicles in Karachi is around seven million whereas the number of traffic policemen is 5,000. “My officers say the number should be increased. My reply is if people say so much against us with 5,000 policemen working, they’d say more if the number was 10,000. This is not the solution.”

The DIG said they have brought about the solution to the problem which is: people’s interaction with the police should either be minimal or non-existent. “It was only possible if we were to introduce an automated system. The more you allow the police to interact with the public, the more unpopular it gets. It’s a thumb rule all across the world.”

He said the system began from October 1. No police officer can stop any car at any chowk. “It saves us time. Secondly, the police had to listen to a lot about their behaviour, that too will end. Also, there had to be some intervention about the accidents, because we can’t live with three deaths per day. Ninety deaths per month is a high number by any standards.”

Mr Shah said in order to understand the accident situation, a Karachi Road Accident Analysis Team was set up. Some of the main causes that were found out in the analysis were over-speeding, overloading, and every second accident victim dying was a motorcycle rider. If there were 90 deaths a month, 45 to 50 of them were motorcycle riders. “The reason is; they don’t wear helmets.”

He said the other option they were able to have was to install trackers in heavy vehicles, take their control and tell them about a speed limit. Many transporters got perturbed by it but some of them installed it. “When we brought the law, we made it mandatory. If they don’t install, there’s a fine of Rs100,000. There are 22,000 big vehicles in Karachi that become the cause of accidents. Out of them, 12,000 have installed the tracker.”

The DIG followed his speech by showing pie-charts to the guests to back up his arguments.

Mr Hasan, in his address, raised a few points. He said what the police are demanding of Karachi is a change in culture. “Change in culture takes time to come.”

The second point he touched upon was about the continuity of policies. The third was that traffic and infrastructure have a close relation. “One can’t separate them. I think the city needs spatial reorganisation. We have identified 13 roads which don’t have that much burden of traffic.”

The fourth point that the town planner highlighted was that there are countries in the world in which a child during his primary school learning is taught or trained about traffic.

“You have taken a big responsibility by introducing the automated system. People’s point of view must be taken into account,” Mr Hasan added.

After the speeches, the floor was opened for a question-answer session.

Published in Dawn, By Peerzada Salman, October 8th, 2025