Karachi’s streets are killing fields, and everyone knows it. On Monday, a water tanker racing through Malir Halt crushed a young couple, leaving their newborn son dead minutes after birth. Hours earlier, Asif, a 32-year-old, was killed by a speeding dumper in Quaidabad. These are not accidents but are the direct result of some policymakers valuing political connections and bribes over human lives.
The numbers scream negligence. The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) admits heavy vehicles caused 60% of road deaths in 2023, up from 33% in 2020. A simple walk through Shahrah-e-Faisal at night is enough to reveal potholes yawning like craters and overloaded trucks (some carrying 30% above capacity) swaying like drunk giants. A KMC audit, perhaps to put the point further across, found that 67% of these vehicles lacked fitness certificates, yet they dominated roads with impunity. Could this status quo exist because the system is rigged? Publication after publication has lamented how inspectors responsible for regulating heavy traffic keep pocketing significant bribes, allowing them to wave through death traps.
Opposition parties are partly right in blaming the government for an inadequate reaction to the tanker and dumper mafia but would the respected MQM leaders care to elaborate on what they did during their tenure at the helm of the affairs? It can only be hoped that this time around, the Karachi Commissioner’s words will not be as empty as before. He would do well to ensure the HVMC, created in 2020 to regulate 12,000 trucks, rattles out of complacency and creates a task force against freely moving water tankers. Remember Gadap 2022? Officials had promised change. Sadly, nothing changed.
We’ve seen solutions work. Punjab banned heavy vehicles from roads between 7 am and 10 pm while Islamabad uses GPS trackers to flag expired registrations. Karachi’s leaders know this. Perhaps, this time around, they will rise above press conferences.
Prosecute corrupt officials and jail contractors who bribe their way past inspections. Name the politicians shielding this mafia. Until then, Karachi’s roads will keep claiming lives-not by chance, but by design. *