Just a small recall of the times when you are on / near Shahra-e-Faisal and you are stuck in between a sea of cars standing still. You see an ever-increasing and endless trail of cars piling up from a point where your sight can’t even reach, after a couple of minutes you see a VIP protocol whoosh-by on the empty adjacent road and that’s when you feel like a…….. You know what! :)

Here are some pictures and a video… (a friend happened be in office (on Shahra-e-faisal) when he capture this on his cell phone, so the credits for the pictures and the video goes to Danish)

One thing that the drivers need to learn more than anything in Karachi is courtesy. If not because its ethical and civilized and all that, then to help themselves.

Here’s why:

The traffic at a round about or a non functioning signal is blocked and there isn’t a traffic policeman in sight. The four way bottleneck has resulted in chaos and every car is just trying to push through to make its own way out. While a few lucky vehicles are successful in zigzagging their way out of the mess, the traffic keeps building at the rear so that what probably started as one man’s impatience has snowballed into a major problem for a few hundred (and that is not an exaggeration).

That’s one way of going about of it but lots of Karachi drivers consider it the only way.
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Reckless and fast driving has more disadvantages than advantages. It risks yours and others lives, it increases the stress, it burns more fuel, and so on.

Here is an excellent article on advantages of driving slow. I myself was a reckless driver once but then gradually I learnt to drive slow and I never miss those days of crazy driving. I would highly recommend this practice to all of you.

As Mantissa pointed out in the comments section here, WHAT is it that makes our drivers keep their headlights on high beam — continuously, consistently, forever, no matter what!

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Yesterday, as I was driving back home on the largely deserted 26th Street from Khayaban-e-Badban, I seem to notice how some vehicles, (no less modern and flashy then the latest, automatic models of Honda) would absolutely refuse to drive in a single lane. And no, I’m mot talking about over-taking here, I’m talking about how some drivers have the annoying habit of cruising neither quite in the left, not quite in the right, but precisely some where in the middle of the two lanes, and hence essentially not driving in any lane at all! While this may not have resulted in anything significant on a largely empty road as the one we were both driving on yesterday, but at a busier venue and location, it would have surely resulted in needless blocking of the cars behind and a totally unnecessary disruption to the general flow of traffic.
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Nothing says “Be careful when driving” better than seeing what happens when you dont!

Surprisingly, none of the cars involved were from Karachi (atleast not with the distincitve yellow plates) all the more reason for us karachiites to practise extra safety. Just as a reminder, you dont just have to be careful about the way you drive, you have to be careful about the way others around you are driving as well.

Image Credit: khanana

No matter what the circumstances… this is *not* how you park a car!!

Most people out on the roads of Karachi are in a hurry to get somewhere in time. It’s not like people are very particular about being punctual, but when driving, the sense of urgency still prevails. Under such circumstances, even the most law abiding citizens feel its justified to ignore the red light, or drive in the wrong lane, or simply put- be a menace to others on the road.

Safety signs on the Super Highway read ‘Better Late than Never’. I propose a modification. Being Early never hurt anyone. If everyone gave themselves a 20 minute cushion, instead of leaving for their destination just in time to make it on time, the traffic situation would greatly improve. All the comments on the previous post in the series suggested, if everyone could just be a little patient, half the problems wouldn’t exist. But, when pressed for time, no one even considers being patient.

So the next time, you absolutely have to reach somewhere on time, give yourself a good time margin when you take to the wheel. Be a part of the solution, not the problem.

Even after all the signal-less corridors and the underpasses and the overheads, the traffic situation in Karachi doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Traffic jams, bottlenecks- CHAOS are still daily occurrences on the city’s thoroughfares. But, there are ways to avoid the everyday mess on our roads.

In this new series ‘Driver Education Drive’, authors at KMB will post a lesson every now and then, which if every driver on the roads to Karachi could make a point to follow, Karachi’s roads would be a much safer place to drive. That everyone will save on time and fuel will come as an added benefit.

Lesson # 1
Never drive the wrong direction on a one-way road.
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