City buses go desperate

Bus operators seem to have become desperate, as if in competition of traffic rule violation, in the absence of enforcement, leading to frequent accidents in the capital.
Experts fear that the situation may deteriorate further if the authorities do not reform the road transport sector and enforce traffic rules. 
On June 23, Tejgaon Polytechnic Institute student Abul Hasem was killed after a bus coming from behind smashed his head, popped out the window of another bus, at Mirpur in the capital.
Dhaka Medical College Hospital outpost in-charge sub-inspector Bachchu Mia said the student faced the fatal accident when he was on a Prajapati Paribahan bus and another bus of the same bus service tried to overtake it.
On Thursday morning, a Savar Paribahan bus hit a CNG-run auto-rickshaw from behind at Zero Point in the capital and injured five passengers of the auto-rickshaw. 
Dhaka Metropolitan Police additional commissioner (traffic) Mosleh Uddin Ahmed told New Age that the bus driver was reckless as the city roads were still almost empty after Eid vacation. 
Following the accident, the traffic police alerted all its members in the city to take action against buses as many of them were running recklessly on the empty roads, he added. 
In Dhaka, almost all city bus drivers are seen to drive recklessly, competing with each other, pick and drop passengers everywhere and park their vehicles haphazardly.
The transport workers are also seen to defy the lane and run haphazardly leading to congestion. 
Which is alarming is that all these violations of traffic rules are taking place in presence of law enforcers. 
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology professor Shamsul Hoque alleges that aggressive completion on roads and denial of traffic rules are symptoms of the country’s indiscipline in the road transport sector. 
He regrets that unfortunately the authorities are only blaming workers for the chaos, instead of the faulty system. 
He suggests that the authorities reform the transport sector immediately by putting emphasis on self-enforcement system and strict monitoring. 
SM Salehuddin, former executive director of Dhaka Transport Coordination Board finds many owners under a single company and buses running under lease system behind the transport workers’ unruly attitude. 
In both cases, everybody is competing with everybody as the transport workers want to take more passengers and finish trips as fast as possible to earn more, he thinks. 
He also blames unskilled drivers and indifferent attitude of law enforcing agencies for the chaotic situation in the city transport sector.
Without rationalisation of the existing bus routes and companies, it would not be possible to check the situation, he adds. 
DMP additional commissioner Mosleh Uddin Ahmed said they were regularly filing cases against bus operators and drivers for violation of traffic rules. 
On Wednesday, he said, traffic police filed a total of 226 cases against bus operators and drivers for wrong parking, overtaking, over-speeding and not having driving licences and fitness certificates. 

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net