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.