Illegal structures, poor pedestrian facilities blamed [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

Illegal structures, poor pedestrian facilities blamed

Local May 12, 2019

Illegal structures and parking as well as poor pedestrian facilities at highway crossings were causing accidents, officials and experts said on Saturday.
About 70 per cent accidents in the country occurred on national and regional highways, they said at a workshop.
Illegal structures were found right besides about 95 per cent intersections and 80 per cent intersections are affected by illegal parking while 10 per cent national highway intersections have footbridges with no such infrastructures on regional highways, they added.
Roads and Highways Department, RHD in short, organised the national workshop on road safety at highway intersections at CIRDAP auditorium in the capital to observe the Fifth United Nations Global Road Safety Week 2019.
Under a RHD project, Consultancy Services for Study on Road Safety Hazards including Design of Countermeasures at Intersections on National and Regional Highways of Bangladesh, two surveys were conducted on 693 intersections, including 365 on national and 328 on regional intersections recently.
While presenting a paper, RHD road design and road safety circle superintending engineer AK Mohammad Fazlul Karim said that 31 per cent drivers on national and 28.4 per cent drivers on regional highways found visibility obstruction because of roadside shops, encroachment and parking.
According to the surveys, about 10 per cent intersections on national highways have zebra crossings, eight per cent have refuge islands and six per cent have sheds with seats while six per cent regional highways have sheds with seats, five per cent have zebra crossings and one per cent has refuge islands.
During a series of interviews, 70.4 per cent jay walkers said that they were walking without any reason.
The surveys found that 24.6 per cent motorcyclists and 26.4 per cent co-riders did not wear helmets and 21 per cent and 17.7 drivers did not wear seatbelts on highways.
And all these were contributing to increased number accidents on the highways, the surveys found out.
At the intersections 77.9 per cent accidents involved hit and run incidents, 50.4 per cent were of overturns and 31.9 per cent were head-on collisions which were mainly caused by poor traffic enforcement, movement of unfit vehicles, reckless driving, bad road condition and untrained drivers, according to local observers.
About 85 per cent of the crashes could be prevented following introduction of channels and segregation of local traffic from highway traffic.
Intersections also cause traffic congestion for 79.5 per cent and 82.3 per cent illegal parking on national and regional highways respectively and 57.5 per cent and 51.2 per cent poor traffic management on national and regional highways respectively.
Deputy inspector general of highway police Md Atiqul Islam blamed illegal leasing out of roadside lands along the highways for accidents.
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology’s Accident Research Institute director Professor Md Mizanur Rahman urged the authorities to improve the system of collecting accident data.
He also said that as per their researches 70 per cent of the accidents occurred at non-junction areas and 30 per cent at junctions.
Nirapad Sarak Chai chairman Ilias Kanchan said the government at the same time should provide more facilities to pedestrians and enforce laws strictly in case they violated any rules.
Speaking as chief guest, Road Transport and Highways Division, RTHD in short, secretary Md Nazrul Islam placed emphasis on responsibility, awareness, change of mindsets and patriotism of all involved to ensure safety on highways and roads.
The workshop was attended, among others, by RTHD additional secretary Mohammed Belayet Hossain, Syed Abul Maksud and Dhaka University psychology department professor Azizur Rahman.