Defence and accidents.
With the increasing traffic load , rash drivers and less then adequate roads accidents are on the rise since quiet sometime and defence I can personally vouch has been very susceptible to them specially the road leading from ghazi chowk to beacon house and the main defence road ( the adil hospital one)
I was witness to one such tragedy where a young 24 yea old guy a worker in defence hospital was run over by a car.The guy suffered heavy injuries , was operated upon thrice due to internal haemorrahge and slipped into a come and passed away within a period of less then 14 hours.What senseless waste of a life snuffed out in such a short time because of someone who was in too much of a hurry to drive carefully.
The deceased was the only son of a widowed mother , the sole supporter of his family and was scheduled to be married on the 4th right before ramazan.Suffice to say it was tragic ….Such frustratingly empty words when you think of the tragedy which has destroyed two families.
They are trying to broaden the road but I really wish someone could come up with better rules to avoid this.
Any suggestions?
I am little old. In my days road justice was common. Road justice is, catch the recless driver, burn his car, beat the heck out of him. Do it collectively. Make an example out of it. But now days, I guess incompetence is ever high in command and rule in Pakistan. Police was always corroupt, but now busy to protect other corroupts.
Hope, there is none. Don’t think I am against people with cars. I got 3 in my household. I just hate these NODOLTIYEE walkig on the earth like they own it.
Well if thats what they did hats off to them I would definitely applaud “Old is gold” then
Whenever I drive fast ~ or try to rush I get a comment from my Dad – Beta apni gari samajh kai chalao, apnay aap ko driver samajhnay ki zaroorat nahi hai – relax. Or he comments something like: Jitna accelerator press karo gay, car utni tez bhagay gi – Is mai konsi bari baat hai. The better car you have faster it will run so whats do you have to show off?!
It was indeed a BiG loss which won’t recover but I myself, as a youngster, believe that we should go with the flow, don’t overtake unnecessarily. There’s no courage in driving faster.
It happens 99% of the times that when i see a CiViC or Corolla with the kids driving overtakes me hurriedly they are waiting in the Queue with me on next signal :P
And needless to say: you hardly save 5 mins maximum with furious driving!
I agree so totally and those 5 min are not worth THIS ….I wish stuff would improve …….
I remember the words of another wise man, who said this to a young student just as he planned to cross the Mall road by running across the traffic:
“Young Man! It is not worth risking 60 years of your life to save five minutes.”
Bravo!!!!!!!I just wish once again that people follow this ….
Thanks a lot cynicalutopian :o) . I hope so too…
It surely was a sad incident. Allah Ka Shukar hai that I haven’t never seen any serious accident for last many years.
One thing I would like to say is that the biggest responsibilty comes with the users of the roads; the drivers and the pedestrians alike.
It isn’t right to blame traffic police men for the rough traffic values in our society.
You cannot blame a police man when he stops you for over speading, not having a license or breaking a traffic rule. The bribing thing becomes secodary in such cases…
My Nana Abu, as my mother narrates it, used to say, “Whenever you are on the road, think of anything coming your way as if it surely is going to bang into you and that you have to save yourself from the upcoming thing”.
I heard from someone that if you want to check how civilized a society is, you can judge it by spending a few hours standing in the middle of a traffic square.
opee
The utopian fervently hopes things improves but so far the cynic is having a fieldday :)
Ghubbara 8
No where and in no situation can one blame just a simgle person or entity and that applies here too .The deficiency is on both sides.I just hope people (in all disciplines) as a whole do something to avoid this unnecassary loss.
I agree with CYNICAL that we just can’t blame a single person or a single entity, due to systemic nature of the problem.
Lack of effective enforcement, combined with lack of driver awareness, training and education, as well as predominant (Lahori) social attitudes, which in some ways idolize disregard for rule of law, are some of the issues that need to be combatted head-on.
At the same time, I would like to highlight the fact that “road justice” was definitely *not* true justice anymore than ‘the law of the jungle’ could be considered a proper “law”. The “road justice” in some cases, with overwhelming brutality, unfairly penalized the vehicle driver without any regard to the facts of the situation. For example, even in instances where an unattended little child runs onto a busy street and gets injured/killed, though extremely painful event, cannot always be attributed squarely on driver negligence. Similarly, adult pedestrians or bicycle riders testing their courage and luck by running across the lanes during times of heavy traffic are at fault too!
So, its back to effective enforcement combined with proper awareness. These go hand-in-hand, as one without the other simply does not work!
I have come to realize that the bottom line is the prevailing social culture, which has primacy over everything.
If we as Pakistanis and/or Lahoris take an honest and sincere stock of the situation, we will come to a painful realization that we exhibit the classic social attitudes that germinate such issues. Foremost among them is absolute disregard and in some cases even disdain for the rule of law.
It is important to realize and understand that no amount of laws and enforcement can ever “fix” the underlying social culture. Instead it requires building a society that (intrinsically, at the level of the individual) takes pride in upholding the rule of law and reveres the resulting order it brings about; i.e. the fundamental solution is getting to a critical mass (not everyone) of “enlightened” individuals that uphold those values.
This is definitely a longer term solution, but the hope is (and belief should be) that if other more socially advanced societies have achieved it, so could we, insha Allah!