What about lone drivers who were driving themselves to the exam hall?
Did they find a Mercedes engine in a box inside?
Trucks are not standard height. I know an engineer. Who was one day designing a textile mill (structural design) and decided a the soffit of a beam on the basis of some code (AASHTO maybe, I don't remember). But then decided to call the mill manager (MM) and ask them to take some real time measurements. Turned out all the design had to be scrapped because the trucks were much taller than standard.
The real question is: Why? Due to the traditional Pakistani cultural values of improvisation and to favour, like and promote illiteracy, to support and be proud of nonstandard work and to shun and denounce standards.
Why were the trucks taller than standard? I think because they overload, they install extra kamani (leaf springs) which makes them go taller. In addition to traffic accidents like this, having a taller/non-standard vehicle can cause other types accidents also.
Unfortunately driving license is a joke.
#1 Most of the commercial vehicle drivers do not have a license in the first place.
#2 Having a license is useless. No policeman will accept that it is authentic.
#3 Drivers and other people who look like less affluent are treated like trash in driving license branch. Heck, even people with good social status are treated like trash. And the poor fellows who come for PSV license mostly look like simpletons and come from villages, are less educated. Mostly they are met by some 'agent' outside the driving license branch who gives them fake license for a lot of money. A lot because they cannot read the board on which fees is written, thanks to the awesome public school system.
#4 Point 2 and point 3 teach the drivers to never turn towards the license branch. Because, why bear all the insult and attitude when the foot constable wouldn't even agree that your license is genuine.
#5 Even whose license is genuine, what training are they offered by the traffic police? (Not talking about PSV drivers but ordinary M/car drivers like you & me). You just have to pay a fees to get a card. Just that.
#6 People generally do not know what type of license is required for which type of vehicle. Even on Pakwheels. As an example, see this thread I made to ask about the legal difference between M/car, LTV & HTV. And few people responded, even those who responded, didn't provide concrete answer.
#7 Truck drivers' duty is insane. When there is injustice in the society, it gives birth to problems.
I share what somebody observed so many years ago:
One day a dump truck going around a like drunk elephant. Too much accelerator, abrupt braking, swerving steering. Now if you give too much race on diesel engine you don't get speed, you only get smoke.
So they asked, "Why is he in a hurry. Tell him to go calm". A supervisor said, "I already indicated him 3 times, and he agreed too, but he has taken so much charas, he is not in his senses."
Turned out the poor guy was on the steering wheel since the last 3 days.
Continuous 72 hours of duty, with 10 more to go, eat on the steering wheel, no sleep, no rest, heck no bathroom break, just do #1 in a bottle or sit on the roadside while the loader takes its 3 turns filling it. But no time for #2. Just hold it in. This is totally insane. It is totally not possible without taking any performance enhancing drug. And the moral standard of our society is not only zero, it is minus. People are deliberately made slaves of the drugs so they do not leave their jobs and work as & when required (Human resource retention policy). Not only dump truck drivers but trailer drivers (long-route) also suffer the same.
[While you may side with the truck driver on this, they are also exploiters. Just see how household (private car) drivers abuse the cars and exploit the employers. Since in the commercial world, everything is on a larger scale, the exploitation is also multifold, as the vehicle owners tend to lose big if the machine suffers downtime].
The other stressful parts of the job are unfit machinery, police persecution, no heating/cooling, the danger of kidnapping (trucks are kidnapped for ransom all the time), the street justice/beatings meted out by motorcyclists, and the job keeps getting worse.
This would increase possibility of other accidents. And you know, land acquisition is one of the most difficult tasks in Pakistan. People love their land ... would never surrender an inch of it for a project of public good, even at a good rate of compensation. If you remember SherShah bridge collapse (circa. 2007), the reason was narrowed down to flawed bridge design due to land acquisition problems.
Driving in Lahore and Islamabad is more difficult due to hilly area, newer cars, better roads and faster traffic. Usually nothing bad happens in Karachi because the speed is slower than a crawl. If you see the threads depicting traffic accidents of smaller cars which result in death or totaled car, they are mostly from Punjab side. Reason being the 4 reasons I mentioned above.
Plus the self-entitled mentality because there, everybody is government officer or military. While in Karachi, even the footpathi has the 'pawwa' and instantly draw a pistol and kill you or simply mete out street justice using a hockey, if not, a lot of 'bhai log' will descend as custodians of the city and take care of any situation.