DUI and the lack of law enforcement
By FT Correspondent
30 April 2016
KARACHI: While almost every country in the world has strict laws against driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs – including Pakistan – vehicle users still risk their and other people’s lives when they get behind the wheels inebriated. But, in Pakistan, especially Karachi, it is common to see drivers of private, public and commercial vehicles driving intoxicated and having total disregard of their fellow citizens.The utter disregard of traffic laws in the country, from the running of red traffic lights, to turning without signaling and breaking the speed limit, Pakistanis have added a new entry to the frightening list – that of driving while intoxicated.
Even though alcohol is illegal in Pakistan under the Pakistan Penal Code (except for non-Muslims and foreigners), the proliferation of wine shops and bootleggers, especially in Karachi, mean that people from all economic backgrounds have easy and cheap access to local and foreign spirits and beer. Often times, a few news outlets break the story of an inebriated person running over and killing or injuring someone, or crashing into another vehicle, without any consequences, because the perpetrator either escapes, or in the case of an affluent person, pays ‘blood money’ under the country’s Qisas and Diyat laws.
10% of Pakistani truck drivers are inebriated on the job, out of a survey sample of 857 drivers
Strict penalties are in place for those who break the country’s DUI laws, like adding eight penalty points to the offender’s license, and even confiscation of the license until the driver has satisfied the Medical Adviser at the Traffic Police Office that he or she has the alcohol and/or drug problem under control and is not a risk to the general safety of the public.
Drunk driving is prohibited, and there are strong laws about that. But, it is a matter of implementation, which in Pakistan, is the biggest problem regarding every law that has ever been written.
Despite a lack of reporting by the local media on DUI cases and absence of credible statistics, an unlikely source provides an insight into the problem in Pakistan. An October 2008 study conducted by the US National Library of Medicine, under the National Institutes of Health, conducted a sample of 857 commercial bus and truck drivers at the largest commercial vehicle stations in Rawalpindi and Islamabad.
It found that almost 10% of truck drivers use alcohol while driving. Hashish use is almost 30% in some groups. Those sampled were unaware of road rage, error behaviors, and an increased risk of being involved in road crashes due to alcohol and hashish consumption while driving. Globally, Pakistan ranks fifth in the number of road traffic injury related deaths, at around 40,000, out of over 1.2 million lives that are lost annually. A significant number of deaths on Pakistani roads are attributed to drunk driving, but like every other law-breaker, most of the perpetrators escape scot- free.
