Drivers must be tested for drugs, eyesight: HC

The High Court Division on Thursday ruled that drivers must be tested for drugs and eyesight before getting driving licence and while driving.
The bench of Justice JBM Hassan and Justice Md Khairul Alam asked the government, the Bangladesh Road Transports Authority and the police to introduce a system in six months for carrying out the tests to check road accidents.
The issued seven-point directives for road safety in a verdict in a public interest litigation writ petition filed by Supreme Court lawyer Ruhul Quddus Kajol demanding Tk 1 crore in compensation for killing Govt Titumir College student Rajib Hasan in road accident in April 2018. 
The bench directed the Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation chairman and the directors of Sajan Bus Company to jointly pay Tk 50 lakh as compensation to Rajib’s two orphan brothers in two months.
BRTC lawyer Munirujjaman told reporters that the corporation would appeal against the directive on it.
Rajib, a student of Govt Titumir College, died at a hospital on April 17 after his right forearm was severed as a Sajan Paribahan Bus, in a bid to overtake, dashed a BRTC Double-decker he was on board, in Karwan Bazar crossing on April 3, 2018.
The court also directed the home ministry to pay Tk 1 lakh to the three-member expert committee comprising two Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology professors and Nirapad Sarak Chai chairman Ilias Kanchan for submitting to the court the report on a through probe into Rajib’s accident and recommending measures to prevent road accidents.
On May 8, 2018, after hearing the writ petition, the High Court asked Swajan Pariibahan and BRTC to jointly pay Tk 1 crore to Rajib’s family.
The family are yet to get the compensation as the Appellate Division in November 2018 stayed the High Court order and asked the High Court Division to dispose of the writ petition after assessing the responsibility for the road accident.
In the verdict, the court also asked the respondents to install close-circuit cameras at major bus stops in the capital in six months to determine speed of buses.
The court also asked the respondents to introduce in six months the system of bus route rationalisation for running buses in different colours on different routes.
The court also asked the respondents to enforce the Road Transport Act 2018 by assigning a date in official gazette for its enforcement in six months.
The respondents were asked to immediately implement three other directives — prohibiting blowing horns near hospitals, educational institutions and in residential areas, keeping doors of running buses closed and picking no passengers except from bus stops and ensuring that driver must be tested for drugs and eyesight while examining their licenses.
On February 16, 2019, New Age ran a report stating that drug addiction among drivers of public and private transports had long since remained overlooked in from the process of obtaining licence to driving on roads as there was no system in place to check it in the country.
The report quoted Accident Research Institute assistant professor Kazi Md Shifun Newaz of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology as saying that transport workers usually used drugs like hemp and Yaba which helped them to remain awake for a long time. 
‘These drugs reduce their capacity to take right decisions and they take more risky turns or overtake due to over confidence,’ he explained. 
In many countries, apart from blood, urine, saliva and hair tests, police use some machines to check drugs level in bloods within 10 minutes, he mentioned. 
He said that the law enforcing agencies or the Accident Research Institute had no machines to check drug addiction among on-duty drivers while the licence providing authorities should play a strong role in this regard. 
‘As a result we don’t know how many accidents are caused by addicted drivers. But it is obviously a big reason behind road accidents,’ he added. 
Experts and anti-drug campaigners demanded that the authorities should develop a system from licensing to enforcement to detect if any driver was running on drugs, which is being followed in other countries like the United Kingdom and Canada.
They blamed drugs for a large number of fatal accidents. 
Currently, Bangladesh Road Transport Authority only conducts a medical test of the professional drivers which, however, does not include any tests for drugs. 
Highway police and traffic department of Dhaka Metropolitan Police have no system to detect drug level in the blood of drivers on duty.
According to the existing Motor Vehicles Ordinance 1983, the professional drivers have to submit a medical certificate to obtain licence.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net