Every gov­ern­ment even­tu­al­ly reach­es for the same lever when frus­trat­ed: pun­ish­ment. When roads be­come dan­ger­ous, tem­pers flare and sta­tis­tics wors­en, the in­stinct is pre­dictable—raise the fines, in­crease penal­ties, name, shame, blame and hu­mil­i­ate. It looks de­ci­sive. It pho­tographs well. It sat­is­fies pub­lic anger.

How­ev­er, if pun­ish­ment alone cre­at­ed good be­hav­iour, there would be no smok­ing, no di­a­betes, no do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, no sub­stance abuse—and no re­peat traf­fic of­fend­ers.

Yet hos­pi­tals re­main full, pris­ons over­crowd­ed and roads in­creas­ing­ly dan­ger­ous. So, be­fore we ap­plaud high­er fines as bold lead­er­ship, we must ask a hard­er ques­tion: “Does sham­ing peo­ple ac­tu­al­ly change be­hav­iour—or does it sim­ply sat­is­fy po­lit­i­cal op­tics?”

In med­i­cine, we aban­doned the idea of hu­mil­i­a­tion as ther­a­py a long time ago.

We no longer shame pa­tients with obe­si­ty.

We do not pub­licly dis­grace peo­ple with HIV.

We do not fine di­a­bet­ics for poor blood sug­ar con­trol.

Shame does not heal. It hides, hard­ens and harms.

Any­one who has raised a child knows this: fear may force obe­di­ence but it nev­er teach­es wis­dom. In fact, it of­ten pro­duces re­sent­ment, de­fi­ance and cre­ative rule-break­ing. A child taught with care learns judge­ment, re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and em­pa­thy. That is how char­ac­ter is formed. Be­hav­iour changes when rules are ex­plained, con­se­quences are fair and good ex­am­ples are set. The same prin­ci­ples ap­ply to na­tions.

When fines in­crease with­out con­text or ed­u­ca­tion, dri­vers don’t sud­den­ly be­come safer. They be­come more anx­ious, more eva­sive, more cyn­i­cal. They learn where po­lice hide. They learn when en­force­ment re­lax­es. They learn how to game the sys­tem.

Blame is easy. Lead­er­ship is hard.

Blame says: “You are the prob­lem.”

Lead­er­ship asks: “Why is this hap­pen­ing—and what sys­tems failed?”

If traf­fic of­fences are ram­pant, we must in­ter­ro­gate more than in­di­vid­ual moral­i­ty.

Why are roads poor­ly de­signed?

Why are traf­fic lights mal­func­tion­ing or miss­ing?

Why is pub­lic trans­port un­re­li­able, un­safe or non-ex­is­tent?

Why are road­works end­less, chaot­ic and un­marked?

Why is en­force­ment in­con­sis­tent, se­lec­tive or po­lit­i­cal­ly timed?

In med­i­cine, when a pa­tient’s con­di­tion de­te­ri­o­rates, we do not sim­ply scold them. We re­view the en­vi­ron­ment, the sup­port sys­tems, the med­ica­tions and the ed­u­ca­tion is pro­vid­ed. We ask what bar­ri­ers ex­ist.

Pub­lic pol­i­cy should be no dif­fer­ent.

The safest coun­tries in the world did not fine their way to safe­ty. They ed­u­cat­ed their way there.

Chil­dren learn road eti­quette in schools.

Dri­vers are re­trained pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly.

Pub­lic mes­sag­ing is in­tel­li­gent, not in­sult­ing.

En­force­ment is fair, vis­i­ble and pre­dictable.

Let me be blunt: this is pub­lic health.

Road traf­fic in­juries are among the lead­ing caus­es of death glob­al­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly in young peo­ple. Emer­gency de­part­ments see the car­nage dai­ly—frac­tured skulls, sev­ered spinal cords, lives al­tered for­ev­er in sec­onds.

If we treat­ed heart dis­ease the way we treat traf­fic of­fences, we would sim­ply fine peo­ple for eat­ing fried food and call it pre­ven­tion.

Ridicu­lous? Ex­act­ly. Pun­ish­ment alone is not pre­ven­tion—it is ab­di­ca­tion. Hu­mil­i­a­tion teach­es cit­i­zens one thing very well: the state sees you as an en­e­my, not a part­ner.

There is al­so an eth­i­cal di­men­sion. Rais­ing fines dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly harms low­er-in­come cit­i­zens—the very peo­ple who re­ly most on un­re­li­able roads, poor pub­lic trans­port and age­ing ve­hi­cles.

For some, a traf­fic fine is an in­con­ve­nience. For oth­ers, it is gro­ceries, school­books and med­ica­tion. And when laws are per­ceived as un­fair, peo­ple stop re­spect­ing them al­to­geth­er.

If the goal is safer roads—not bet­ter head­lines—then lead­er­ship must be smarter.

1. Ed­u­ca­tion be­fore es­ca­la­tion

Na­tion­wide, sus­tained road-safe­ty ed­u­ca­tion—not sea­son­al slo­gans. Schools, work­places, me­dia. Make it cul­tur­al.

2. In­fra­struc­ture re­form

Bet­ter sig­nage. Prop­er road mark­ings. Func­tion­al traf­fic lights. Log­i­cal in­ter­sec­tions. You can­not fine peo­ple for nav­i­gat­ing chaos.

3. Con­sis­tent, fair en­force­ment

No se­lec­tive crack­downs. No po­lit­i­cal tim­ing. Pre­dictable en­force­ment builds re­spect.

4. Grad­u­at­ed penal­ties with re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion

Points sys­tems tied to re­train­ing, not just pay­ment. Ed­u­ca­tion af­ter of­fence, not hu­mil­i­a­tion.

5. Lead by ex­am­ple

No blue-light im­puni­ty. No of­fi­cial ar­ro­gance. Laws must ap­ply equal­ly—or they ap­ply to no one.

We have seen this movie be­fore. Dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, gov­ern­ments across the world mis­took pun­ish­ment for pol­i­cy and op­tics for out­comes. Lock­downs were an­nounced with­out plan­ning. Rules shift­ed with­out ex­pla­na­tion. Cit­i­zens were blamed for vi­ral spread, while over­crowd­ed hos­pi­tals, poor ven­ti­la­tion, in­con­sis­tent mes­sag­ing and de­layed pro­cure­ment were qui­et­ly ig­nored. Peo­ple were shamed for gath­er­ing, fined for move­ment and pub­licly scold­ed—yet es­sen­tial sys­temic fail­ures went un­ad­dressed. The re­sult was pre­dictable: con­fu­sion, mis­trust, fa­tigue, non-com­pli­ance and an ero­sion of pub­lic con­fi­dence in au­thor­i­ty.

Raise fines if you must—but do not con­fuse pun­ish­ment with progress. A na­tion does not be­come safer be­cause its cit­i­zens are fright­ened—it be­comes safer when its peo­ple be­lieve the rules are fair, the sys­tems func­tion­al and the lead­er­ship hon­est. That is how be­hav­iour changes. That is how trust is re­built. That is the on­ly road worth tak­ing for­ward.

That is how 2026 should be­gin.