LAHORE: Sixteen-year-old Asfandyar is the only son of Ghulam Akbar. The teenage boy is the youngest of five siblings and the only son of the family. The pampered boy was never stopped from doing anything he was passionate about and all his demands were reportedly met by his parents and elder sisters, whether those demands were justified or not.
Asfandyar had developed a passion for one-wheeling on motorcycles as well as fast car driving since he was 13. He never shied away from racing on the roads of the metropolis. He was only stopped by traffic wardens twice.
Since June this year, when City Traffic Police (CTP) got a new Chief Traffic Officer (CTO), SSP Syed Muntazir Mehdi, there had been a lot of checks on roads against rash driving and one-wheeling. A large number of youth have been fined for driving rashly by the traffic wardens. Safe city cameras placed on all the major roads across the city including Canal Road helped identify the illegal driving practices.
Asfandyar told Bol News that traffic wardens carried out an awareness campaign about underage driving and not to drive without licence since July or so. “But I never paid heed to them and in fact paid challans a few times. Even my car and motorcycle [were] also seized and only released after my father gave surety to the traffic police multiple times. I never took these rules seriously.”
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Asfandyar said, with tears in his eyes, that an incident occurred on September 30 which completely changed his life. “I was one-wheeling on my two-wheeler on main Jail Road when I lost control of my vehicle and rammed into one of the cars passing by. I lost consciousness. My life was saved by one of the traffic wardens standing there who rushed me to hospital.
“I had multiple injuries including head injury and bruises on the back”, he said. “Two of my bones were also broken and I stayed in coma for three days. This incident has completely changed my life and now my advice to all youth who are involved in rash and underage driving is to abide by the rules. I also appeal to parents not to give their underage children cars and motorcycles as it could take away their lives.”
Judicial action
Lahore High Court (LHC) had reportedly imposed a ban on underage driving on Sept 12, 2018. LHC Justice Ali Akber Qureshi, who was hearing a petition at that time, remarked that underage children are not allowed to drive motorcycles, cars or rickshaws.
“The parents of underage kids will be asked to sign an affidavit in the first phase and parents of underage children found violating the ban will be jailed as the minors are their responsibility,” Justice Qureshi had said in his remarks.
But this law was never implemented until this year and many youth fell prey to illegal driving practices including one-wheeling.
Unlike Asfandyar, many underage drivers are at times bound to work as drivers of Qingqi rickshaws to make ends meet. Ali Abbas is one such boy who drives a Qingqi in the vicinity of Circular Road area. Abbas lost his father, who was the sole breadwinner of the family, when he was 13. The teenager was left with no other option than to drive the Qingqi rickshaw in place of his father to make ends meet and feed his mother and three siblings.
“After the law was passed in 2018, I used to plead to traffic wardens to let me go. Some of them would let me go after listening to my plight while I was forced to bribe the other wardens,” he claimed.
Abbas further said that since CTO Syed Muntazir Mehdi took charge, even the traffic wardens who used to take bribe from him are stopping him from driving the Qingqi rickshaw. “Wardens are now warning me to move to some other work which juveniles like I could do in Punjab without restriction.”
“I try to drive a Qingqi rickshaw on those roads now where there are no cameras and wardens due to which my earning has been affected,” he concluded.
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A traffic warden observed that “The CTO is strict about the rules and has also warned the department that if anyone is found guilty of taking bribes, they would be dealt with an iron hand and stern action will be taken against them.”
City traffic police had registered around 80,000 challans against juvenile drivers since the CTO launched a campaign against underage driving across the provincial capital.
One-way violations
It is not just an issue of juvenile driving; even citizens over 18 are reportedly also not willing to abide by traffic rules. Drivers are always looking for shortcuts whether it is a one-way violation or taking wrong U-turns on Lahore’s Jail Road or Ferozepur Road.
On November 19, LHC Justice Shahid Karim ordered the CTP to impose a minimum fine of Rs2,000 on the motorists violating the one-way rule on the roads.
The LHC judge issued this order after taking notice of frequent violations of traffic rules by motorists while hearing multiple petitions regarding environmental issues, including smog.
CTO Mehdi informed the court that the traffic congestion is usually caused because of the poor condition of the city’s roads despite reminders to the authorities concerned.
“The city roads remained in a state of disrepair causing enormous difficulty for the vehicles plying there. The motorists were usually not deterred by the meagre fines slapped on them for violation of traffic rules especially the one-way rule.”
At this, Justice Karim directed that the minimum fine for such violation should be increased to Rs2,000.
Syed Ahmed Abbas, one of the commuters who claims to have been a habitual violator of the one-way rule, said: “I thought that like all the previous orders of the court, this time too traffic laws will not be enforced. I was wrong because it seems that our traffic police have completely changed their attitude regarding law and order. They are strictly following the court orders and conducting a lot of challans on one-way violation.”
Speaking to Bol News, Rana Arif, a spokesperson for the City Traffic Police, said that during the campaign, the department issued 36,439 challans for one-way violations, 6,123 challans for not having a driving licence and 37,431 challans for smoke emission by vehicles. “These smoke-emitting vehicles are … one of the root causes of the air quality crisis and smog in Lahore.”
Sources privy to Lahore’s traffic situation claim that due to the ‘successful campaign’ launched by the CTP against the violations, people have reportedly started obeying the basic traffic rules and court orders.
A traffic warden, who spoke to Bol News on the condition of anonymity, stated that he used to take bribes from motorists previously. “After our department received a warning from the traffic chief [of] CCTV cameras … monitoring traffic wardens, we mended our ways.”
Overspeeding violations
Shams Ali, a resident of Johar Town, who is a sports car enthusiast and developed the habit of fast driving, said that he used to drive car at 100km/h to 130 km/h on main Canal Road for years. “Previously, the traffic wardens were absent on Canal Road and I always felt that the safe city cameras installed there are not operational. I was wrong because in the last couple of weeks, I got 10 e-challans for overspeeding on Canal Road due to which I mended my ways and now I am abiding by the traffic rules.”
Driving without license
Ali Raza, a 72-year-old businessman based in Lahore, who claims to have always abided by traffic rules, stated that he never had a challan in his 50 years of driving. “I lost my driving licence a couple of years ago and it was a manual one. During my days, I was never stopped by the traffic wardens because I always abided by the traffic rules with no violations.”
I was recently stopped by city traffic police and they asked me to show my driving licence, he elaborated. “As I did not have one, the traffic wardens issued me a challan of Rs2,000 but I was glad to see that finally our traffic police are serious about enforcing rules and not ready to compromise on road safety. This is a good sign and a step in the right direction,” he said.
