There is a tragic pattern to public safety reform in Pakistan. Obvious solutions are often ignored for years, only to be rediscovered after lives have already been lost. We do not prevent disaster as much as react to it. The latest decision by the National Highway and Motorway Police to make working fire extinguishers mandatory for all vehicles, especially passenger and cargo vehicles, is therefore welcome. But it is also a reminder of how late such common-sense measures usually arrive.
The move comes after a horrific accident on the Islamabad-Murree Expressway, where at least 10 people were killed and 13 others injured when a van caught fire after falling into a nullah near Khajut. Once again, it has taken burning wreckage and grieving families to force attention toward a basic safety requirement.
This is not the first time. It was the sight of a bus burning on the Sindh motorway, with iron bars on its windows preventing passengers from escaping, that pushed authorities to issue notifications for their removal. It was another deadly bus crash in the Salt Range that led to rules requiring passenger buses to travel in slow convoys while negotiating dangerous hairpin turns. Each measure made sense before the tragedy. Each was implemented only after it.
The fire extinguisher rule must not suffer the same fate as so many past safety directives: announced loudly, enforced briefly, and then forgotten. Implementation will be the real test. Ensuring that heavy vehicles carry active, non-expired extinguishers is not as simple as issuing a notification. It requires regular inspection, trained staff, penalties that are actually applied, and a system to prevent operators from treating compliance as a temporary inconvenience.
This is especially important because passenger and cargo transport remains central to daily life and commerce. A single preventable accident can destroy families, livelihoods and public confidence.
