“Every time an unlicensed driver grips the steering wheel, a child’s future is being gambled with, and too many lives have already been lost because we ignored this gamble.”
The problem is stark, for years, drivers without valid licenses, including those ferrying schoolchildren have operated with impunity. That meant more accidents, more overturned school vans, and more innocent lives cut short. Driving without a license was, in effect, a “license to kill.”
Recognizing this, the Punjab Traffic Police along with the provincial authorities rose to the challenge. Under the newly enacted Punjab Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Ordinance 2025 (also referred to as the new traffic ordinance), sweeping reforms have been introduced.
• Heavy fines, electronic ticketing, and a penalty-points system now punish traffic violators, repeated offenders risk suspension or complete cancellation of their license.
• The law doesn’t exempt even “government vehicles” a clear message that nobody is above traffic rules.
• Within just two weeks of the crackdown, over 117,000 drivers were fined for lacking valid licenses, showing the scale of the problem being addressed.
• In major sweeps, the police issued tens of thousands of challans in a span of days, impounded vehicles, registered FIRs against serious violators, and waged a “zero-tolerance” campaign.
According to Dr. Usman Anwar, the police head “driving without a license is a license to kill.” He stressed that protecting the lives of children, especially school-going kids is non-negotiable, and that no number of strikes or blackmail can justify risking innocent lives.
The importance of this crackdown cannot be overstated: each month across the province, countless preventable accidents may happen because of reckless and unlicensed driving. These are not just statistics: they are mothers wailing, families shattered, futures erased. The ordinance is not a bureaucratic exercise; it is the difference between life and death.
Yet the reform did provoke resistance. On December 8, 2025, many transporters, under the banner of Pakistan Transport Committee, launched a province-wide “wheel-jam strike” to protest the new fines and enforcement. Public transport, goods carriers, rickshaws all stayed off the roads.
But even then, the government held firm. Despite the strike, the leadership under Maryam Nawaz Sharif reaffirmed its commitment: this law will be enforced without compromise. The message was clear; comfort, convenience, or profit can never override the value of human lives.
This crackdown is a moral stance, a declaration that children’s safety matters, that lives are priceless, that we as a society will not let negligence or profit-seeking kill our future. If we want roads that represent respect for life, not death, this is the kind of courageous, unflinching action we need.
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