An over-simplistic view of the traffic mess
At a lunch-cum-briefing given by Mr Muhammad Altaf Qamar, Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police, Traffic, Punjab, the DIG outlined the state of traffic, its problems and what measures should be taken to improve the situation. The briefing was attended by senior columnists and editorial writers. In a bid to resolve the growing traffic problems faced by citizens all over the province, Punjab’s Traffic Police has taken an initiative to reorganise the traffic police in five major cities of Punjab, namely Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Multan and Gujranwala. The traffic problems identified by the DIG were not anything new, but it seems that the traffic police chief has tried to resolve a very complicated traffic problem by the usual prescription of inducting more traffic cops, yet it is debatable whether more recruitment will untangle the traffic conundrum without addressing the root causes, which are still lingering – rather compounding by the day. The last few years have seen a massiv...