EDITORIAL:

Daily Times [Pakistan] A report in this newspaper says that the Punjab government has finalised the draft of a law against motorcyclists performing stunts on city roads, especially wheelies, following reports of an increasing number of deaths and injuries from accidents. A standing committee of the Punjab Assembly has apparently approved the law and the draft is ready to be presented in the assembly. The bill, titled “The Provincial Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill 2006,” will be tabled in the upcoming session of the provincial assembly and stipulates a prison sentence of up to six months for the offender. The offender’s motorbike will also be confiscated. Section 99-A of the bill reads: “Whoever rides a motorcycle in any public place while standing or lying on one wheel, which endangers human life or property or is likely to endanger human life or property, shall be liable to be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to six months or fine which may extend to Rs 2,000 or both.”

What should we make of this new attempt to bridle unruly bikers? Consider some facts.

Bikers have been a nuisance on the roads for at least two decades. Every weekend and on other holidays, crowds of them take to the streets and perform stunts, zigzagging through traffic and endangering their own and other people’s lives. Despite many attempts – setting up checkpoints, arresting and impounding their vehicles and so on - the police have been unable to restrain their adrenaline. How will the new law be effective where other administrative action has repeatedly failed?

Apparently the logic behind the new law seems to be that its deterrent effect will stop the bikers from doing what they love to do. We beg to differ. The law will be enforced through the police and we are not sure how the police will be any more effectively armed with the law than when it was when operating against the bikers without it. Reason: even without the law the police used its fire-brigade tactics to try and deter these maniacal crowds and failed. The activity had a tendency to sprout like a carbuncle on a different part of the city’s body even as it was suppressed in one part.

The thing to note about this activity is that the enthusiasm of the youth indulging in these stunts has not dampened despite reports of deaths and injuries. Many have seen their friends die on the roads; yet that has not stopped them from carrying on. If the fear of death has not deterred them, how will a six-month-long jail term do it?

It could help only if it were part of a broader approach to the problem. Performing stunts on bikes is not unacceptable per se. What is unacceptable - and illegal - is performing such acts on city roads. The provincial government would make the law more effective if, while strictly clamping down on such activity on the roads, it were to provide these youngsters with specially designed tracks and stadiums where they could expend their energies. Biking is a recognised activity throughout the world. The government could get foreign experts to design such tracks and hold competitions, providing a purpose and meaning to the activity rather than merely taking a legislative-administrative approach to it.

The government also needs to study the socio-economic profile of the youngsters who indulge in this activity. It seems that the majority are young boys from low-income groups. The activity provides their largely purposelss and unpromising lives an outlet. Despaired of any prospects in life or opportunities for upward social mobility, quite a few of them also take a perverse pleasure in breaking the law, damaging expensive cars and insulting people who are economically and socially much above them. Alone, they are nobodies; in a crowd and on their bikes they become fearsome. It gives them a kick.

The government needs to study the phenomenon beyond its immediate manifestation of stunts and injuries. Police records show that a large percentage of violent crime in Lahore and in other big cities is committed by youngsters from the old residential areas or other peripheral localities. This factor, too, should go into studying the issue. No one who has invested in his or her person, who has a promising life and career, is likely to want to throw away his/her life. Before we can hope to deter these boys, we need to give them hope