No, no. This article is not about the PSX Big Boys nor about the Real Estate Barons nor about the wheeler-dealers who can get anything done in government offices and nor about the second- and third-tier members of political parties who brazenly have party flags on their vehicles and a police escort following them. This is about the bikers of Karachi.
Two years ago, my article “Bikers of Karachi” was published in this newspaper. Most of the issues that were highlighted in it still persist or have worsened. Automobile drivers, pedestrians, and even traffic police on Karachi’s roads, streets, and lanes have become increasingly subservient and unresponsive to the self-assuming power, rebellious insubordination, and roguish assertiveness of these bikers.
The nearly five million bikers in Karachi operate as if they are omnipotent czars imposing their own rules, diktats, and conducts.
The bullying and intimidating influence and hooliganism of these riders transcends the orders of police higher-ups. These bikers do not give an owl’s hoot to the cop directing traffic on the roads.
The harried and stressed policeman performing his duty in an environment that is engulfed in pollution, noise and smoke, does not bother what these bikers do. He damn cares whether the biker is obeying or flouting the law.
He has accepted the fait accompli and, probably, in his heart and soul, he knows that penalizing a low or middle income biker would not enrich the Treasury.
In order to introduce sanity on the roads, the Sindh government installed AI-operated cameras on the main arteries. Not wearing helmets by bikers, not wearing seat belts by car drivers, over speeding, going the wrong way, driving without licence, etc., faced stiff penalties.
The first few weeks after this system, called E-challan, proved reasonably effective and nine out of ten bikers seen on Shahrah-e-Faisal were wearing helmets. Traffic became smoother and drivers ensured that they were driving within 60 kph limit. Violators received the E-challan within two days, delivered directly to their residences or offices.
Alas, like most of the schemes and initiatives of the Sindh Police, the E-challan system soon lost its lustre. The bikers made, and now increasingly so, making a mockery of the system.
Helmets are left at home, and they are nonchalantly riding without worrying about getting fined. They will not fork out a thousand or so to buy a helmet and do not care if they are involved in an accident and getting injured.
Maybe they are more willing to pay thousands to hospitals instead of making themselves safe on the roads. The police had even put up banners and panaflex signs on I. I. Chundrigar Road to warn bikers, but within a few days these too were unceremoniously removed. It’s back to square one.
In Punjab, the fine is PKR 2,000 plus an FIR for not wearing a helmet. In Sindh, it is PKR 5,000 and no mention of an FIR. It is proposed that after Eid the fine for not wearing a helmet should be raised to PKR 10,000 to discourage these bikers. But even then, the number of bikers not wearing helmets will continue to swell. It is in their mindset that laws are not be obeyed.
Maybe they have this notion that since the Federal and Provincial governments do not care about Karachi, why should they care about the laws and rules?
Maybe the E-challan system has deleted the checking of bikers not wearing helmets. By the way, is there a planned SOP to periodically clean the cameras, considering the amount of dirt and grime that flies around the city?
The bikers continue to drive in the fast lane, zoom between cars, zigzag between cars, denting cars and just saying “sorry”, flagrantly going the wrong way, not stopping at red lights, and parking wherever they feel like even if they make it difficult for cars to pass through.
Minors are seen on the roads driving in these same manners and are rarely stopped by the traffic police. The bikers are the masters of the road, they make their own rules; they are the Elite Capture. Defiance is in their blood, non-conformism is in their behaviour, and maverick way of life on the road is their opium. There is a term for them: Scofflaw.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026
The writer is President Employers Federation of Pakistan