Road transport sector anarchy persists across Bangladesh

The government is mainly focusing on infrastructure development instead of planning measures and enforcing laws to improve the sector’s performance while the whole sector is being run by a strong syndicate that thrives on extortion, they also observed.

Blaming the tendency to hide authentic statistics on road accidents, they further said that it would not help in achieving the Sustainable Development Goal to increase road safety.

Political will is necessary to check the chaos on roads, they observed.

The chaotic condition in the road transport sector — in the capital city roads, national and regional highways as well as district and other roads — was one of the major problems the country went through over the year 2022 like the previous years, even during the pandemic.

Illegal and unfit vehicles, drivers without proper licences or no licences at all, reckless competition on roads and highways, slow-moving vehicles on highways, kitchen markets beside highways and major roads as well as extortion remained key reasons for the disorder on roads, according to the experts.

Road fatalities, instead of going down towards achieving the relevant Sustainable Development Goal, are rather increasing across the country while the government is blamed for suppressing correct statistics.

According to police statistics, 3,512 people were killed and 3,754 injured in 4,119 road accidents till September 2022.

But the number of road accident fatalities between January and November in 2022 was 6,079, according to non-profit Road Safety Foundation, which compiles reports based on media coverage.

The Road Transport Act 2018 is yet to be fully implemented even though almost four years have passed by after the law was enacted while the rules for the law remain to be framed, with the law itself awaiting an amendment to reduce punishments for road-related offences.

Professor Md Shamsul Hoque, former director of the Accident Research Institute, said that the government took very few initiatives to check the anarchy on roads in 2022.

‘The government has improved the Dhaka–Mawa expressway, but what about the other roads? Crashes keep taking place on those,’ he observed.

‘The government is working for infrastructure development like building one hundred roads or arranging training for 10 lakh drivers, but, on the contrary, the “competition” on roads is not decreasing,’ the road safety expert noted.

The chairman of the Road Safety Foundation, Professor AI Mahbub Uddin Ahmed, said that the entire road transport sector was in grip of extortion while it also became a strong political tool, he further observed.

‘Therefore, without political will, the problems in this sector cannot be solved,’ he added.

In 2022, the government inaugurated the Padma Bridge on June 25, connecting 21 south-western districts with the capital Dhaka and other areas.

Two motorcyclists were killed in an accident while some 60 per cent of the 61,836 vehicles that used the bridge on June 26, the day when the bridge was opened to traffic, were motorcycles.

The authorities the same day banned motorcycles on the bridge until further order.

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina is scheduled to inaugurate Bangladesh’s first-ever metro rail service on the Uttara–Agargaon route on December 28 after a long wait.

Meanwhile, wholesale violations of existing laws and different directives issued by the prime minister, ministries concerned and even the High Court were witnessed in 2022.

The prime minister on June 25, 2018 gave directives to ensure rest for drivers every five hours, alternate drivers for long-distance transports and the use of seatbelts during travels, which are yet to be implemented.

The High Court on August 3, 2015 issued a directive to the road transport ministry and the police to keep the unfit motor vehicles off the road across the country.

The road transport and bridges ministry has imposed a ban on three-wheelers and non-motorised vehicles on different national highways since August 1, 2015, but road crashes involving these vehicles remain very high as per reports prepared by different non-governmental organisations.

Shamsul Hoque also said that the number of non-standard vehicles like easy bikes kept increasing on roads like an epidemic and kitchen markets besides roads kept sitting defying a High Court order.

‘As the number of vehicles is increasing on roads, the number of trips and the speed of vehicles are also increasing,’ he said, adding, ‘With increased speed, the number of fatal crashes is also rising.’

The expert said that the government needed good planning, education and then the enforcement of laws.

The government initiatives since 2011, including amending laws and making recommendations, to achieve the SDG Number 3.6 to cut the numbers of deaths and injuries in road accidents to halve by 2020 remained unfulfilled.

In 2021, the government initiated another move to halve the numbers of deaths and injuries from road accidents by 2030.

‘Now the government is underreporting the road crash casualties,’ said Shamsul Hoque, adding, ‘It’s very unfortunate that our statistics are not authentic.’

If the authorities show fewer crash and fatality figures than other statistics like those provided by the WHO in order to show the fulfilment of the SDG targets, then there will be no improvement on roads, he said.

‘We need scientifically generated statistics to address the road safety issue,’ he added.

Professor AI Mahbub said that the anarchy on roads kept persisting due to the absence of proper management.

‘The numbers of cars and motorbikes are increasing on roads but the public transports are not,’ he said, alleging that the growing number of vehicles are causing noise and air pollutions and traffic congestion, too.

Traffic police members, he said, are seen to be rather highly interested in fining vehicles, even though there are no facilities like parking spots for the users.

There are also problems with authorities that are responsible for ensuring safety on roads, he went on to say.

‘Even if you want to get something done at the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority in a legal manner, still you have to pay extra,’ he said, adding, ‘This entire sector is run by “syndicates”.’  

Road Transport and Highways Division secretary ABM Amin Ullah Nuri on December 21 told New Age that they were implementing different projects to ensure road safety.

According to him, three-wheeler vehicles, especially easy bikes, have spread all over the country and the number of motorcycles has also increased in recent times.

‘If motorcycles get on footpaths and pedestrians do the walking improperly, then what should we do?’ he asked, adding that awareness among all is necessary to follow the rules.

Otherwise, he added, it is not possible to ensure safety on roads.

According to the police, 5,088 people were killed and 4,709 others were injured in 5,472 road accidents in 2021 while the figures for 2020 were 3,918, 3,826 and 4,198 and for 2019 were 4,138, 4,411 and 4,147 respectively.

News Courtesy:

https://www.newagebd.net/article/189979/road-transport-sector-anarchy-persists-across-bangladesh