Two horrific accidents have occurred, apparently both them the result of reckless driving and also because of the general disregard for observing traffic rules. The first one was a rickshaw carrying 15 people whose driver seemed desperate to cross a railway line without realising that he was risking the lives of so many people; the train pulverised the rickshaw and the hapless passengers.The tragedy further appears to cause more agony when it turns out it was an entire family, 12 of them, who were killed. This is yet again a sad reminder of the state of our railways; now it is quite shocking that the railway authorities have explained that deploying watchmen on thousands of crossings is but impossible. Meanwhile, in another accident that perhaps also resulted from the same kind of daredevil stunts, two coaches were zipping down the highway near D. G. Khan in what was reported to be a race to overtake one another, when one of them fell into Right Bank Chashma Canal. These accidents make it pretty obvious that the drivers of transport which include rickshaws, buses, vans and other such vehicles often tend to ignore safety rules when they know they are not being watched.The pain or the degree of tragedy that has befallen the family killed in the train collision cannot be put down in words and so is that of those unfortunate souls losing their lives because of two drivers bent upon speeding. The railways cannot afford to install gates and watchmen on such dangerous crossings, a damning indictment of the condition of the coffers at the railway ministry, facing the energetic new minister who has only recently taken charge. Something concrete needs to be done in order to put checks on drivers of public transport rather than relying only on a shabby system of vigilance on the country’s highways. These tragedies cry out for the need to wake up to doing the needful.