Stand at any busy chowk in Lahore at half past eight in the morning and you will see the real Pakistan go past you on two wheels. A father with a child wedged in front of him. A shop assistant balancing a carton on the tank. A student who will be marked absent if the light does not change. These are not lawbreakers by temperament. They are the country’s clerks, its labourers, its salesmen and its students — the middle class and the deprived, who together make up the overwhelming majority of this nation. Many of them are still paying for the machine underneath them in monthly instalments.
And standing in that same chowk, in the same heat and the same fumes, is a young man in a warden’s uniform. He is somebody’s son too. He is our brother, our child. Any honest conversation about traffic in Punjab has to begin by holding both of those facts at once.
I say this to the traffic police and to their leadership with affection, not accusation: the fundamental purpose of your service is not collection. It is guidance. It is the saving of lives. Every rupee that funds your salary, your allowances and your benefits — from the constable at the crossing to the DSP, the ASP, the SP, the SSP, the DIG and the IG — comes out of the tax paid by the very people standing on the other side of that whistle. You are, in the truest sense, in the service of the public. That is not a burden. It is an honour, and it carries an obligation.
The obligation cuts both ways. Members of the public can be difficult; wardens are sworn at, argued with, and occasionally shoved. That is part of the job, and it is a hard one. But the greater share of the responsibility rests with the institution, not the individual citizen — because the institution has the training budget, the command structure and the power to set policy.
Consider what a heavy challan actually does to a motorcyclist. It does not deter him. It removes him. A fine that exceeds several days of his earnings does not teach him lane discipline — it decides whether his family eats normally that week, or whether the instalment is paid on time. If the bike is impounded, he simply cannot reach work at all. Punishment that large is not correction; it is destruction dressed up as enforcement.
My proposal is deliberately simple: cap the fine on a motorcyclist at Rs 500. Let that be the ceiling, not the starting point. A modest, certain penalty that is actually paid will change behaviour far more effectively than a punishing one that is evaded, negotiated or simply escaped.
Look at the ledger honestly. Measure the share of challans issued to motorcycles against the share issued to expensive cars, and ask whether the balance reflects the danger on the road — or merely who is easiest to stop.
Enforcement that is felt only by those least able to resist it is not enforcement. It is a tax on poverty. The law must reach every vehicle equally, whatever the number plate says and whoever is behind the tinted glass.
Not long ago, a boy came down a road on a motorcycle far too fast. A warden stepped out to stop him. They collided. The boy fell, his head struck a stone, and he did not survive. I recount this as it was told to me, and I do so without blame — the warden was almost certainly trying to prevent exactly the tragedy that then occurred.
But that is precisely the point. Good intentions are not a method. Stepping into the path of a speeding motorcycle is not an interception technique; it is a coin toss with a young life. The lesson belongs to the leadership, not to the constable who acted on instinct in a half-second. Wardens need continuous instruction and live demonstration on how to stop a vehicle without becoming part of the crash. That instruction is a command responsibility.
We have inverted the logic of the helmet. We penalise the man who does not have one instead of ensuring that he does. The Punjab government, and provincial governments generally, are not short of resources for a programme of this scale. Distribute helmets. Run sustained public campaigns on their use. Make the licensing of motorcyclists straightforward, accessible and cheap enough that compliance is easier than evasion.
None of this is administratively difficult. It requires only the will to treat road safety as a public health objective rather than a revenue stream.
Here I will be blunt, in the way that only affection permits. Too much of our official energy is consumed by the presentation. The slide is beautiful. The arrow moves smoothly from one box to the next. The photographs are excellent. And the road outside the office is exactly as it was the morning before.
Governance improves through work in the field, not through the polish of a briefing. It improves when the head and the heart pull in the same direction — when hard work is joined to genuine desire, and an officer wants the thing to actually be better, not merely to be seen to have addressed it.
A state must behave towards its citizens as a mother behaves towards her children — firmly when necessary, but never cruelly, and never with contempt for those who have least. Adopt a policy of affection, and the public will meet you halfway. I salute traffic wardens when I pass them, because the work they do in that heat deserves it. The public should offer them that respect. But respect is reciprocal, and the institution must earn its half.
Lower the fine. Provide the helmet. Simplify the licence. Train the warden properly. Stop the expensive car with the same evenness as the motorcycle. Do these things, and the day is not far off when this city will salute the traffic warden without being asked — when a public opinion poll returns the verdict that the traffic police is the finest institution we have.
That is a reputation worth far more than any amount of collected revenue. And it is entirely within reach.
Pakistan Paindabad.
EDITORIAL DISCLOSURE: This column has been adapted from a recorded video address by Col. Akbar Butt, translated from Urdu. It has been edited for structure, length and clarity in accordance with the standards of The Lahore Times.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Lahore Times.
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