APROPOS of the letter ‘The cause of traffic jams in Karachi’ (Jan 27), I agree with the writer and would like to add that Singapore has banned adding new cars on the roads. It does not issue any registration plates for new vehicles.
Only when old and junk vehicles are scrapped, the new car owners can use such existing number plates after converting it to be used for their new vehicles. This action has drastically limited the number of vehicles on the road. We can learn from this excellent example.Secondly, after the construction of flyovers in Karachi, road guidance signs directing traffic are missing. Thus more chaos and confusion leads to traffic jams. I came to Karachi recently after very many years and have found it too difficult to drive, especially using flyovers as they take me to long detour and different routes.
While coming from the airport, the right turn of the flyover to Shaheed-iMillat Road is cement-blocked without pre-warning to drivers climbing on this flyover. One cannot come back. As a result, the left turn takes them to theDHA, thus wasting their precious fuel.
Similarly, the same flyover is cement-blocked for incoming traffic from Nursery to go up. This needs to be redressed at the earliest.
We need more directions and assistance signboards to avoid confusion on the roads, leading to traffic jams. More and more people these days are found violating traffic signals which also results in traffic chaos. Heavy honest penalties can discipline such violations, especially violating signals.
DR SALEEM SIDDIQI Karachi