Budget for 2014-15 Pakistan, has been announced on June 3, 2014. This time again, raising the expectations of 179.2 million Pakistanis. Today, Pakistan is surrounded by innumerable problems. These include terrorism or sovereignty violation, religious intolerance, water shortage, inflation, rampant corruption, provincial disharmony, low status for women, devalued currency unemployment, low education, and weak foreign policy and thousand more. With the announcement of budget a ray of hope raises every year in the hearts of this big population that these innumerable problems may become countable. These problems cannot be neglected, because these monster problems have taken away the lives of many.
Land is the major mode of transportation in Pakistan. The total length of roadways in Pakistan is 258,340 km. And it possesses 4.2 million vehicles. With the upcoming technology the number of vehicles on road is growing like topsy. Here the need to overcome the RTS in Pakistan arises. The RTS in Pakistan is getting shoddy with each ray of the sun. Pakistan possesses a thick population, but the RTS prevailing in Pakistan has not reached that level of excellence and maturity by which this heavy traffic could be control.
RTS of Pakistan have number of problems that needs to be solved. These include lack of infrastructure, usage of drugs while driving, violation of the traffic rules, lack of sign boards, less durable constructions, lack of traffic police force etc. These all are inadequate to meet the rising demand of the local transportation. There are no signals, if any, they are not in working condition, no zebra crossing, and footpaths are in such a condition that the vehicles can easily get across to the other side of the road through foot paths. All these things create a miserable situation on roads. We can witness all these problems while we are driving along the roads in Pakistan. It becomes a really difficult task for a new born driver or people from foreign countries to drive in such a wretched situation.
In the recent researches it has been found that, 1.27 million people die due to accidents, globally. According to the World Health Report, which was released on 7th April, 2004, 5000 and 12000 people are killed and injured in road accidents respectively. In the year 2011, the FIR based data showed 16825 cases of road accidents in Karachi.
This wretched condition of RTS is taking Pakistan deeper into poverty. Here the question arises how? If a breadwinner of a family meets and accident, it will directly lead to poverty, or a family who is totally dependent on one person, comes across an accident, and loses any part of his body and is unable to work now, how will things get better in such a condition?
Pakistan has a long way to go, to reach to the level of excellence and maturity that exists in the developed countries like, UK, USA, Japan, Italy, Netherlands, France, Belgium etc. These countries have top ranking in the countries having most congested road traffic. Then to they are having the world best RTS. They are using Automated Road Traffic Management Systems to control their traffic. If for a while we consider, how would things work if we have such automated systems to manage the RTS in our country. Things will get preferable if there will be signals on each nook and corner, cameras capturing those who are violating rules and then punishing them, having lane system, speed limitation on local roads, pedestrians having priority, institutions to train the traffic police and most importantly the licenses should be given to people after close inspection and screening. With this the statistics of the Road Traffic Injuries (RTIs) will rapidly go down.
Pakistan is not behind the world, in the terms of technology. So, we cannot say that all these measures are back- breaking to think upon. Pakistan is walking in line with the world in having new technological inventions. The biggest example we can see is the 3G&4G launch. So it is not a strenuous task for a nation like Pakistan which is bringing in technological revolution with a swift. If all the above mentioned measures will be considered in Pakistan, then nothing can stop Pakistan from having the best RTS in world.
Now the government needs to put in their heads into this subject matter. The government needs to invest to overcome these issues. Such steps will not only save lives of those thousands, who lost their lives on no grounds, but will also take the country towards a better condition.
After considering all these issue, now it’s time to evaluate ourselves. How much we are responsible? What is our involvement towards this? What measures we are taking to overcome these issues? If we start thinking upon these questions, half of the problem is solved there. Then I don’t think that any individual will leave home without carrying license, no one will violate traffic rules, and people will consider traffic officers as their leaders, cars will stop behind and not on the zebra crossing allowing the pedestrians to move freely without any fear. If all these miniature things will be taken into consideration by all the citizens of Pakistan, then I think the nation will save all of is burghers and not letting them leave this world with any occasion.
