Editorial
Phasing out unfit vehicles
A perfunctory job will be counter-productive
IT seems the government is resolute and appears to mean business with its latest initiative to bring order in city traffic. It has decided to drive out road unworthy, unlicensed and old vehicles from the streets. But it is a tall order given their swarming the city after each short-lived, failed attempt to flush them out.
Mobile courts will sit, scrutinise papers and phase out unwanted transports. There is, however, a dearth of magistrates which is a limitation. Importantly, the criteria have not been spelled out, but we understand that vehicles 15 or more years old and belching noxious gas into the air are likely to be axed. Of course, the fake fitness and other documents, thanks to the corruptibility of BRTA and lack of law enforcement, cannot help determine the real age of the buses, lorries and cars nor the proficiency of the drivers. This is at the heart of the problem of proliferation of vehicles that should have been ordered out of the streets a long ago. As for measuring the exhaust fumes for pollution level, this exercise has hardly ever been successful owing to technical shortcomings.
Unless the problems are sorted out at the owners' level, wield as they do considerable influence over the authorities, there is no way the government can ensure that only roadworthy transports will ply. The communications minister has emphatically stated that mobile courts will not spare even government officials or public representatives. We believe, this is the way to go about it, for it's the government sector which despite importing shiny transports runs a fleet of dilapidated, polluting vehicles. The government offices and corporations will have to lead the way.
Every year as the Ramadan comes a special drive gets underway to arrest the worsening traffic situation but surely ad-hoc measures cannot solve a problem that is deeply entrenched and is also multidimensional. A halfhearted measure can be worse than inaction as it strengthens the culture of impunity. It will be better for the special committee formed to ease traffic congestion to concentrate on a single agenda for the moment. If it can seize a good number of unfit and unlicensed vehicles and put them out of action, that will be quite an achievement. But this should not again hinder the mobility of the people and ought not to lead to harassment of genuine owners and operators.
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