Three-wheelers, illegal local vehicles still on highways causing accidents

Frequent fatal accidents involving three-wheeler, non-motorised and other illegal vehicles on highways are taking place across the country defying a 2015 ban and a High Court directive and other recommendations.

These vehicles run in front of members of law enforcing agencies while they turn a blind eye to the violation.

Road safety experts, activists and locals alleged that the ban did not become effective due to the culture of extortion by political elements and police, lack of requisite facilities on highways, faulty designs of highways and indifference of passengers.

On Sunday the New Age correspondents in Sirajganj, Sylhet, Bogura and Tangail found that these vehicles were running on the Dhaka-Rajshahi, Bogura-Nagarbari, Dhaka-Sylhet, Dhaka-Rangpur and Dhaka-Tangail highways both during day and night times.  

Accidents involving three-wheeler and illegal vehicles on highways have increased the number of fatalities, said road transport and bridges minister Obaidul Quader on different occasions.

According to Accident Research Institute, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, around 15 to 17 per cent road accidents involved these vehicles and they contributed 20 to 25 per cent in the fatality rates.

A report of Passenger Welfare Association of Bangladesh shows that during the latest Eid-u-Azha holidays 224 people were killed and 866 injured in 203 road accidents while three-wheeler auto-rickshaws were involved in 13.52 per cent, easy bikes and battery-powered rickshaws in 4.98 per cent and indigenously developed Nasimon and Karimon vehicles were involved in 3.55 per cent of these accidents.

The ministry on August 1, 2015 imposed a ban on movement of the three-wheeler and non-motorised vehicles on 22 national highways in the wake of a spate of traffic accidents on highways due to increased presence of these vehicles.

The High Court on August 3, 2015 asked the government and the police in particular to keep the unfit motor vehicles off the roads across the country.

In April this year a committee on road safety, headed by former shipping minister Shajahan Khan, proposed in its 111 recommendations for allowing minibuses, BRTC buses and mini-truck services to ply on the highways for the local people.

This daily’s Sirajganj correspondent reported that three-wheelers like CNG-fuelled auto-rickshaws and battery-powered rickshaw vans were running on the Dhaka-Rajshahi and Bogura-Nagarbari highways from Hatikumrul intersection regularly even in front of the police, causing fatal accidents regularly.

Battery-powered rickshaw vans on Bogura-Nagarbari highway’s Bhuiyangati, Ghurka and Chandaikona areas are a normal scene.

Passengers of such vehicles often lose their lives in Nolka, Panchila, Konabari, Ghurka, Boalia and Chandaikona intersection areas when trucks and buses hit them.

Locals allege that the police do not take action against these vehicles as they get protection money on a monthly basis from the owners of these vehicles.

A similar situation is seen from the Hatikumrul intersection to Kodda, Soydabad and Mulibari areas where rickshaw vans often ply on the Dhaka-Rajshahi highway in front of Kodda traffic outpost and Bangabandhu Bridge west police station.

Bangabandhu Bridge west police officer-in-charge Syed Shaheed Alam has admitted that accidents involving rickshaw vans are frequent, who do not follow the ban even after repeated warnings. 

Hatikumrul Highway police officer-in-charge Md Akhtaruzzaman said police often seize these illegal vehicles from roads but they get back again.

Additional superintendent of highway police at Bogura Md Shahidullah said that they would look in to the matter soon.

Our Sylhet Correspondent reported that CNG- and diesel-powered three-wheeler autos and locally innovated tomtoms regularly ran on the 150-kilometre length of the Dhaka-Sylhet national highway under Sylhet and Habiganj districts.

Transport owners and workers of Lalabazar, Goalabazar, Sherpur and Panchpur areas alleged they have to pay all police stations around this section of the highway at the rate of Tk 600 to 1,000 a month against each of these vehicles for running on the highway.

They estimate that around 7,000 such vehicles carry passengers on the highway under these two districts.

Locals have also alleged that most of the accidents that take place on the highway are head-on collisions between three-wheeler vehicles and trucks or buses. 

Sylhet Metropolitan Police deputy commissioner (traffic) Tofael Ahmed said they take regular action against these vehicles and if any allegation of police corruption in this regard is proved true they take action.

The New Age Correspondent in Bogura says that CNG-fuelled autos, easy bikes and even rickshaw vans run regularly all day long on a 65-km stretch of the Dhaka-Rangpur national highway from Chandaikona under Sherpur upazila in Bogura to Rohobon under Shibganj upazila.

A similar situation was seen Sunday on the 32-km stretch of the Bogura-Natore highway from Bogura to Nandigram upazila.

Bogura police traffic inspector Rezaul Karim said some of these vehicles get on the highway when there are no police personnel there.

Our Correspondent in Tangail reports that three-wheeler vehicles ply on the service lane of the under-construction Dhaka-Tangail national highway.

However, these vehicles run on the highway for about one km through Ashokpur, Khudirampur and Rabna bypasses under Sadar upazila and Elenga and Matin Degree College area under Kalihati upazila.

Three-wheeler vehicles also regularly run on a 30-km stretch of the highway through northern districts, Tangail and Mymensingh, from Elenga to Modhupur and Modhupur to Mymensingh Town Hall area.

Professor Mizanur Rahman, director, BUET Accident Research Institute, has said that the ban on three-wheeler vehicles is not being implemented due to local political leaders who are under pressure from local people in favour of such vehicles to ply on highways.

‘There are no service lanes on highways in the country for allowing these vehicles to run,’ he said and added that this was a big fault in the designs of the existing highways.

Around 15 to 17 per cent accidents involve these vehicles and they are accountable for 20 to 25 per cent of the fatality rates, he added.

Passenger welfare association secretary-general Md Mozammel Haque Chowdhury said all kinds of vehicles including illegal ones were running on highways at present.

‘Three groups are beneficiaries of this irregularity – dishonest political leaders and activists, a section of transport owners and workers and some corrupt police members – who get immoral benefits from the owners of these vehicles to allow them on highways,’ he alleged.

If these issues cannot be checked then the situation won’t change, he added.

Bangladesh Road Transport Authority chairman Md Moshiar Rahman told New Age Thursday that they were working with the transport owners to prevent movement of three-wheeler and illegal vehicles on the highways.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net