Back to square one?: Wardens losing respect among the public

[LRE]

Back to square one?: Wardens losing respect among the public

By Shafiq Sharif



LAHORE: The City Traffic Wardens have allegedly started following the tradition of the old traffic police while coping with traffic problems, and citizens have claimed that the wardens’ behaviour is worsening with each passing day.

Talking to Daily Times on Friday, a number of commuters said that they were not happy with the changing attitude of wardens, who had allegedly become rude as well as aggressive. They alleged that the wardens were usually in a hurry to issue tickets, and often misbehaved with them. The people also said that much like the old traffic police officials, the wardens were in a habit of pulling out the keys from the ignition switch to force the people to stop.

Sheharyar Ahmed, a motorcyclist and resident of Gulshan-e-Ravi, said that he was going to his friend’s office on Thursday, and was on Ferozepur Road when a warden, Kashif Imran, forcibly stopped him and asked him to park the motorcycle in the service lane. He said that the warden straightaway issued him a fine ticket without telling him what his fault was. He alleged that when he had asked the warden about his mistake, the warden was rude to him. He said that the warden told him to sign the ticket, but he refused, over which the warden himself signed the ticket and issued it to him.

Nauman Fayyaz, a resident of Walton Road, said that he was returning home from on his motorcycle on Friday morning and had forgotten to wear a helmet. He said that he was about to reach home when a warden, Abdul Rehman, stopped him and asked him about the helmet. “I told him that I had forgotten to wear helmet, over which he issued me a ticket. However, the ‘well educated’ warden was in such a hurry that he issued me a ticket against Violation-20, which is applied when more than two people are riding a bike,” he said. Fayyaz said that the fine for that violation was Rs 300, but the warden mentioned Rs 200 as fine for not using the helmet. He said that when he told the warden that he had made a mistake, the warden tried to snatch the fine ticket and misbehaved with him.

Weather to be blamed: Chief Traffic Officer (CTO) Ghulam Mehmood Dogar said that the department received five or six complaints daily about the behaviour of the wardens. He said that although there was a little increase of public complaints against the attitude of the warden, this was directly related to the weather. He said that the public, as well as the wardens, were uncomfortable because of the hot weather. However, he said that the department had arranged for refresher courses for wardens to improve their attitude. He said that the officials of the City Traffic Police were trying their best to serve the general public to maximum.

In August 2007, traffic wardens were given Beretta pistols to combat crime, but had received complaints regarding the misuse of the official weapons by wardens, which posed a question mark on the performance of the section. Another traffic warden was accused of pointing a gun at a rickshaw driver for violating a traffic signal in January this year. On February 8, 2008, the senior officials ordered the wardens to return their departmental pistols following the death of a student who was shot dead by a traffic warden.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...008_pg13_1