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Road Sense or Non Sense By M. Haroon ur Rashid

Either people don’t have road sense or they are completely non-sense.

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When you go on the road, you will find more idiots and less drivers. Idiots crossing you from the right and left, not dimming the high beam instead flashing high beam over and over again on you, pressing horns without any reason and knowing nothing about the traffic laws. Motorcyclists and Truck Drivers add a way more to this mess.

There is a river of bikes on the roads wearing no helmets on the heads of riders and having no rear view mirrors because it looks odd and out of fashion. Motorcyclists seem to ride bikes taking their lives in their hands. They neither care for their own lives, nor they think of their family and parents and when they don’t think for their own selves and loved ones, how can they be expected to be careful towards fellow passengers on the road. I once visited to one of my friends who is a doctor and was appointed in a road side trauma center of Punjab government and he told me that 15-20 cases are very usual they come across at the trauma center daily and 95 percent of them are bikers and this toll increases to even 80-100 cases a day when it rains. A research shows that 90 percent accidents which occur are directly or indirectly have involvement of bikers. Many of them get severe injuries and a considerable number of them even expires during the course of accidents. Traffic rules and Highway Code don’t allow the motorcyclists to drive on the extreme right of the road instead they are instructed to drive on the extreme left of the road but hardly any of the bikers follow these rules. Many of them not only drive on the extreme right but also sit on the horn and flash lights so rudely like if they and not you have the first right to go on the fast track. They have no realization that they commit illegality risking their lives. It’s a tyranny that the parents are also criminally negligent in this regard and give bikes to their children who are even less than 18 years of age. Motorcycle is a vehicle and biker needs to have driving license but it looks that children don’t bother now to ride on cycles and start biking directly. I have observed in the busy streets and bazars of the towns that the minor children whom legs even don’t reach the ground have their mothers and elderly sisters as pillion passengers on the bikes. It’s horrible and neither parents nor law enforcement authorities pay any heed towards it.

Heavy traffic and especially the trucks are horror characters on the road.  It’s in the air that truck drivers drive being drunk and even sleep while driving. It looks somehow true when we see the condition of trucks when they meet accidents. Many turn upside down or turn on their side while hitting the parting wall of the road or hit any tree on the green belt between the roads. Like bikers they also don’t care of fellow passengers on the roads. They know that the heavy and strong body of trucks will find no bruises if any vehicle comes their way. This mindset makes them to overtake wrongly and carelessly. Traffic rules and Highway Code again don’t allow them to drive on the fast lane i.e. on the extreme right lane of the road but they give a damn about it. They consider it their absolute privilege to drive on the right lane of the road. It seems an insult for them to keep themselves on left lane according to the traffic rules. It becomes more irritating when an extra loaded truck overtakes another extra loaded truck from the right on the fast lane and both start creeping with a reptile speed. Sometimes there is no choice for trucks other than to drive on extreme right lane especially while crossing through the cities where bus stands and encroachment reach even at the mid of the highway. But they have made it their habit to keep their heavily loaded creeping vehicles on the right lane of the road making hurdle in smooth flow of traffic. No matter how long you press the horn or flash high beam on them, they don’t give you the way nor do they leave the right lane. Traffic and Highway police is a total failure in this regard. People often give example that this lawless nation follow laws fully when they go abroad, they forget that the same trucks when drive on the Motorway, they don’t dare to come even an inch towards the right lane because Motorway police strictly makes everyone on the Motorway to follow the rules. But when it comes to the Grand Trunk Road, then what rules and where to implement them?

The general driving habits of the public are also very bad. People behave like the spoiled children on the roads. No one cares for the traffic rules. Zero percent safety measures while driving, it’s basically due to illiteracy, corruption, lack of will of authorities and above all lack of safety mindset. People drive recklessly and impatiently.  Everyone is in hurry and wants to reach the destination before time. They don’t know that it is better to late than never. Drivers flash the lights to make the others blind on the road. It always baffles me, no hourly news headlines one can find on TV channels in which there is no news about any road accident causing number of deaths. It was reported few days ago that a rickshaw driver tried to outrun a train resulting 6-7 people dead. Of course it was criminal negligence of the railway employee who did not shut the railway gate but what if the driver would have waited for hardly two minutes? Nobody drives patiently, no body drives caring for others, no body drives in lanes. Traffic is bad and pathetic and people are in hurry. Traffic Police, law enforcement agencies, legislatures and people themselves are sleeping tight and unconcerned, completely oblivious to the worst situation.

Either people don’t have road sense or they are completely non-sense.

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