Smile, you’re being fined | The Express Tribune

PUBLISHED
November 09, 2025

KARACHI:

At Teen Talwar, rush hour used to feel like chaos that had long slipped out of control. Cars spilled over lane markings, crowding one another until even the zebra crossings disappeared beneath bumpers. Drivers turned right from the far-left lane, some edging past the red light. Motorcyclists zigzagged between cars, their engines whining as they pushed ahead of the signal. In the middle of it all stood a single traffic policeman, arms raised, whistle between his lips, trying to command a storm that refused to listen. For every driver who stopped, two slipped through the cracks. That was Karachi on a regular weekday, loud, restless, and always in a hurry, as if every car carried an emergency.

Today, the same junction moves differently. Even past midnight, cars wait patiently behind the white line, engines humming quietly, headlights reflecting off the rain-dusted road. Even when the signal malfunctions, they wait. Not for the policeman’s whistle, but for the invisible lens fixed above them, the one that watches, records, and fines. The faceless eye that finally did what years of traffic sermons couldn’t, make Karachi drivers wait for their turn.

Speed cameras now stand where the city once raced unchecked. The sudden calm on Shahrah-e-Faisal and the steady pace along Clifton Bridge tell their own story. The fear of an e-challan has done what civic sense never could.

But fear, in Karachi, never lasts forever. Just weeks into the system, people have already found ways around it, wearing shirts printed with seatbelt stripes, warning each other of camera points on WhatsApp, or fixing belts in old cars just for show. And as citizens adjust, traffic policemen, once comfortable with “chai-pani” settlements, find their pockets lighter and authority thinner.

For now, the roads are calm. But if the cameras blink, will the chaos return?

When the whistle was law

Before the cameras came, Karachi’s traffic was ruled by men in uniform, not by machines. A warden’s whistle was enough to pull drivers over, and his pen decided what came next. Fines were issued on the spot, sometimes for genuine violations, often for reasons that existed only in the officer’s imagination. There was no way to challenge it, no formal appeal or digital record to prove innocence. You either paid what he wrote down or negotiated for less. In a city where time is always short and tempers shorter, most chose the latter.

The manual system made citizens powerless against arbitrary policing. Drivers were stopped at random; sometimes for speeding, sometimes for simply not slowing down enough to salute authority. Those who hadn’t broken any law still paid a few hundred rupees just to avoid arguments or delay. Those with connections made a single phone call and walked away. Karachi’s roads weren’t governed by rules; they were governed by relationships.

DSP Traffic Sindh Kashif Nadeem admits that before the e-challan system, monitoring violations was entirely manual. “Officers used to stand on the road, stop vehicles, and issue challans on the spot,” he explained. “Everything depended on their presence.” The process, he said, was heavily reliant on manpower. “There were about 5,000 people in total, and only 400 to 500 were actual challan officers,” he said. Without cameras or automated systems, the entire city’s enforcement depended on those few men positioned at major intersections.

It was a system that left too much to discretion. A driver’s fate could change depending on the mood of the officer or the heat of the afternoon. And since there was little documentation, fines rarely deterred repeat offences. For the officers themselves, the work was physically demanding and morally exhausting, policing behaviour with limited staff, little oversight, and no real support from technology. “This type of digitalisation was not tried before,” Nadeem said. “Now, at least, the system is automatic. People are still doing their duties, but the cameras make it easier to identify violations. This has helped us in fulfilling other duties to clear the roads during rush hours as we don’t have to focus on the challans.”

In many ways, the shift to automation has simply taken human bias out of the equation. Gone are the calls from “someone important,” the small payments slipped through open car windows, and the daily tug-of-war between authority and negotiation. For decades, Karachi’s drivers had learned to work around the rules. Now, the rules work around them, quietly, invisibly, and without warning.

Life under the lens

Something strange has begun to happen on Karachi’s roads. Cars that once treated lane markings as decoration now glide within them. Horns, once the city’s background music, have softened. Even the evening rush on Shahrah-e-Faisal feels oddly synchronized, like a city that finally discovered cruise control.

Haroon, a corporate employee, noticed it one afternoon while driving his daughter home from school. “Traffic was moving at a constant speed, no rash overtaking, no horns,” he said. “Then I realised it’s because of the cameras. People are actually following the speed limits and staying in their lanes.” In a city where drivers once changed lanes as if avoiding potholes were an Olympic sport, that’s progress.

Fear, it seems, has succeeded where courtesy failed. Cameras mounted high above have done what no number of road safety campaigns ever could. Drivers now slow down at familiar intersections, brake near Clifton Bridge, and hold their breath while passing Nursery. It’s less about traffic awareness, more about self-preservation.

Hassan, another car owner, believes this new order is born of discipline, but one rooted in hesitation. “In the first week, it was pure fear,” he laughed. “Now people know where the cameras are. They only behave at the spots where they are installed. Once they start actually receiving challans, they’ll take it seriously. But honestly, this system was needed. Karachi needed someone to make it sit straight.” He paused, then added with a grin, “Except motorbike riders, they’re still on their own highway.”

He’s not wrong. For bikers, staying within the lines is less about rebellion and more about survival. “Wearing a helmet is one thing,” said Yousuf, a delivery rider. “But driving in the designated lane? That’s impossible. Buses and parked cars block it. We have to change lanes or we’ll just stand there forever.” For him, traffic rules feel like a luxury meant for those in air-conditioned cars, not those dodging exhaust pipes at arm’s length.

Yet, not everyone on two wheels is reckless. Some have unexpectedly become the city’s new moral compass. Sharing her recent encounter at a signal, Fouzia laughed and narrated: “I was driving at normal speed when a motorbike rider came up and started saying something. I was furious, I thought he was being rude. I rolled my window down ready to scold him, and he said, ‘Please wear your seatbelt, there are cameras ahead.’ I didn’t know whether to laugh or thank him.”

Moments like these are becoming increasingly common – tiny, human reminders that fear can sometimes lead to unexpected kindness. Karachi’s drivers may not have turned into model citizens overnight, but they’ve certainly learned to drive like someone is watching, because, for once, someone actually is.

Fear, fines, and frustration

For many Karachiites, the e-challan system arrived like a surprise guest.

Take the case of Adnan, a private company employee who earns Rs 50,000 a month. One morning, he received a challan at home for running a red light near Shahrah-e-Quaideen, a place he swears he hadn’t driven through in weeks. “At first I thought it was a prank,” he said, holding the printed slip with the camera image barely showing his car’s plate. He filed an appeal, visited the facilitation centre, and after days of waiting, the committee finally agreed it was a system error. The fine was cancelled, but the relief felt hollow. “If someone earning fifty thousand has to pay twenty-five thousand for one challan, what will he eat?” he asked quietly.

Political parties, too, have stepped into the debate. Jamaat-e-Islami has called for a review of the penalty structure, urging the Sindh government to “bring fines in line with citizens’ financial capacity.” Their representatives argue that the goal should be correction, not collection.

For some, this is accountability finally catching up with Karachi’s long-ignored traffic culture. For others, it feels like collective punishment. The system is efficient, but the city it governs isn’t. Old cars without seatbelts, mismatched registration data, and missing number plates mean honest drivers often pay the price for the government’s own inefficiencies.

At a small workshop on Tariq Road, mechanic Asif has been seeing the change firsthand. “Most models before 2005 don’t have seatbelts,” he said, wiping grease from his hands. “Since this e-challan started, people have been coming daily to install them, not for safety, just for the camera,” he said laughing softly. “The cheap ones cost Rs 1,500. They’re just for show. The proper ones, with working locks and retractors, cost around Rs 6,000-8000. But most people only want it to avoid the fine.”

Because if there’s one thing Karachi has always been good at, it’s finding a way around the rules.

Karachi’s street-level ingenuity

Karachi never runs short of it’s creativity, especially when creativity helps you dodge a fine. The e-challan system may have taught drivers discipline, but it has also inspired a new kind of art form, the art of pretending to follow the rules.

Within weeks of the cameras blinking to life, the city’s residents began experimenting. We can already see a T-shirt printed with a black diagonal stripe being sold online, a “seatbelt” design. A driver stitched an old bag strap across his chest to complete the look. A few went further, clipping a piece of tape across their torso right before a signal, removing it once they’d passed the camera zone. On social media, people now trade these tricks the way they once shared traffic updates. “Camera aagay hai, tape laga lo,” has become the new “Signal red hai!”

Despite the humour, there’s an unspoken irony in all of it. People aren’t rebelling against safety; they’re rebelling against surveillance. “We follow rules only when the lens is watching,” said a young commuter waiting at Shaeed-e-Millat. “As soon as it blinks, we’re back to being ourselves.”

And yet, beneath the jokes, the tricks, and the taped-on seatbelts, Karachi is slowly learning restraint. But while citizens adjust to being seen, another group is quietly struggling to stay relevant. Inside the traffic department, the men who once ruled the roads are now being ruled by screens. And not everyone is taking it easily.

The men behind the monitors

For all the tricks citizens have mastered to dodge fines, the real story of control sits a few miles away, inside the TRACS Control Centre, the quiet heart of Karachi’s new traffic order. Rows of monitors glow under white light, showing live feeds from hundreds of intersections. An officer on duty explained how the system runs. “It’s all camera-based. First, it detects your violation, then reads your number plate. That data is linked to the Excise Department. The violation, image, and time stamp go into our system, and an auto-challan is generated. Pakistan Post delivers it to your address,” he said.

He pointed at a screen where a car had just stopped short of a red light. “If someone believes a challan is wrong,” he said, “they can file an appeal. On the back of every challan, there’s a list of 11 facilitation centres. You visit any of them, your complaint is logged. A joint committee of police, CPLC, and traffic officers reviews it. If they agree it was an error, the challan is cancelled. Otherwise, it stands.”

But even in automation, deadlines have teeth. If a violator pays within 14 days, they receive a 50 percent discount. Wait longer than 21 days, and the fine doubles. After three months, your driving licence is blocked. Leave it unpaid for six months, and your CNIC is suspended, an invisible penalty that can suddenly lock you out of banking, travel, or registration systems.

According to DSP Traffic Kashif Nadeem, Karachi currently has 1,076 cameras in operation, with plans to expand to 12,000. Since the launch in late October, more than 41,000 violations have been recorded. “We don’t have the total fine amount yet,” he said, “because each violation has a different penalty, some 5,000 rupees, some 10,000 rupees, some 25,000 rupees.” When asked about reducing the fines, he was clear: “We don’t have that authority. It’s part of the Sindh Assembly’s legislation. Only they can amend the law.”

He also addressed concerns about cars registered outside Sindh, which currently remain outside the e-challan system. “We are not in a position to issue a number plate for any other province’s vehicle,” Nadeem said. “Punjab has been doing this for 10 years, and even they don’t have our data. But now, it’s become a government-to-government matter. All provinces are sharing their integration APIs, and very soon, vehicles from any province that violate traffic rules in Karachi will receive their challans through Pakistan Post.”

But outside the control room, the story changes. On Karachi’s roads, some officers quietly admit the system has disrupted more than traffic. “If the authority of officers is taken away,” said a sub-inspector stationed in Saddar, “Our weekly system will collapse.” Another officer added, “E-challan may look professional, but it’s ruining the internal workings of the traffic police.” Since the faceless system began, several wardens have sought transfers to the district police.

DIG Peer Muhammad Shah confirmed the movement but dismissed the panic. “Some officers have transferred, that’s their choice,” he said. “But a new order from the IG has frozen transfers for now.”

Among the lower ranks, discontent lingers. “We used to take Rs150 and let motorcyclists go. Now cameras don’t miss anything,” said an officer in Nazimabad. “Sometimes, when someone didn’t have money, we’d leave them for a cigarette or chaaliya [betel leaf]. But now this will not happen.” Another warden posted near Karsaz Flyover admitted, “The real money goes higher up. What comes down to us are the abuses.”

For the first time in years, Karachi’s traffic police are following a system they don’t control. The “chai-pani” culture has dried up, replaced by computer screens and printed receipts. Many officers now hope that someday they’ll get handheld camera devices, a compromise between technology and touch, but until then, the city’s roads belong to the lens.

Karachi’s traffic has finally learned to wait, not out of patience, but consequence. The same streets that once roared with horns now hum with quiet hesitation. Cameras may have brought order, but not necessarily obedience and fear still sits where civic sense should. Yet, for a city long defined by chaos, even borrowed discipline feels like progress. Perhaps the e-challan system won’t change Karachi overnight, but it has made every driver look twice before breaking a rule, and in this city, that itself is a small revolution.