Peshawarites are happy with traffic cops!

thefrontierpost.com

It has become routine for the residents of the provincial capital that commuters face daily problems when travelling by public transport.Sometimes they have to face shortage of the transport during peak hours, while sometimes shortage of seats in buses and wagons and have either to stand, pushed and pressed from all side and trying to get a breathe of fresh air in the damp and sweltering hot weather or, when travelling in a wagon stuffed with passengers when has to stand in a stooped position and still be pressed and pushed from all sides and gasping for fresh air. Over and above the aforementioned conditions the drivers of the city buses and wagons have now caught on a new habit: Drivers don’t fully stop their vehicles and want the passengers, lady commuters included, to climb in and out of the vehicles with a jump and a hop. This is totally against the law— traffics laws mean nothing on the roads of Peshawar, so lets pass this point without further comment. It however is also against the safety and security of passengers, which again, I mean the lives of passengers, have no importance for the traffic cops and the drivers no matter how much the passengers hold their lives dear. The newspaper is just reporting what is happening; the reader nor the commuters should expect any action from the top cops, they have too many other things to do: one of them being to look the other way when the cops on the road close their eyes against all kinds of traffic violations committed by the drivers of the public transport. The public transport plying city roads are driven by some very expert drivers who can sham the kids of rich parents driving motorbikes on the roads of Islamabad. Passing in front of them thinking that they are too far away and will be travelling normal speed and so one can cross the read before the vehicles reach the point is considered a dangerous game, in fact risking one’s life. To bypass it is very risky for any small vehicle as these buses and wagons while speeding straight on the road can make a slight turn and start travelling diagonally and can either squeeze towards the raised edge of the footpath or throw you off the road. These drivers do not bother if the passenger is women or man, young or old; they keep on moving at high speed and if you cannot move in time; well, bad luck. Women and and elderly passengers fall to the ground while trying to do the hop and a jump climb up in or climb down from buses as the bus simply slows down on the bus stops instead of stopping completely as used to happen years back. Well if the girls, young women, elderly men and women get hurt in the process: too bad again far Peshawar is becoming very modern and either move fast or move out of the city is now the new slogan for Peshawarites. Even the traffic police wardens to not bother to take action against such drives and punish them for the sins they commit, for rush-driving on roads has been legalised by the cops and drivers by word of mouth, written laws and written words are not as respected in Peshawar as they used to be. Drivers while picking up a passenger do not obey the bus stop obligation on them and break the rules by stopping even in the middle of the road just to pick up a passenger. The new and word of mouth law agreed between the drivers and the traffic police has overtaken the written traffic rules. When it comes to dropping \passenger,s the same drivers try to stop at a place where they could pick some more passengers and for that they even miss slowing down at a designated bus stop which forces passengers to walk back to their stops. The residents of Peshawar demand nothing of the traffic officials, high and low. They know that high traffic officials have better things to do than supervise their juniors on the roads in hot or cold weathers. They also feel that it is they, the people of Peshawar, who should be aware of the change in the rules of traffic agreed upon verbally between the traffic cops and public transport drivers. Of course, they hear that when the buses and wagons come out early in the morning, the first thing is that each driver gives a piece of paper, bearing the photo of the father of the nation. And in respect of that picture-bearing paper, the verbally agreed law meaning that the drivers can do what they want on the roads of Peshawar, is reaffirmed