Raising tally of deaths on streets, How much longer will roads remain unsafe?

The roads in Bangladesh are becoming increasingly perilous day by day. Reckless drivers, defective vehicles, and incompetent transportation authorities are making the roads more dangerous. Uncontrolled trucks are swarming toll plazas, overshadowing smaller vehicles. In a reckless competition, buses invade the capital through the newly constructed terminal of the third airport. Major highways are filled with large potholes, causing passenger buses to tumble and crash within moments of losing control. According to the transportation authority, nearly 600,000 defective vehicles are operating on roads and highways across the country. Even heavy trucks weighing 5 tons and buses with 60 seats are entrusted to inexperienced teenage drivers. The entire transportation sector of the country has been plagued by extreme lawlessness and chaos year after year.

Despite advancing towards the dream of Digital Bangladesh, we are regressing towards darkness in the realm of transportation. Even cashless digital ride-sharing services in Dhaka have transformed into cash-based transactions on the streets. Only in Dhaka city, where ride-sharing services operate through apps, are drivers unwilling to provide services without cash payments. The inevitable consequence of universal lawlessness in the transportation sector has been witnessed with horror, as two families lost all their members in a road accident of Jhalokathi and Faridpur. A civil aviation engineer from Dhaka was crushed under the wheels of a faulty bus, highlighting the perilous state of public transport in the capital.

Have we ever thought, what is the crime of the family members who were returning to work after the Eid holiday in a private car at the toll plaza? Their driver did not behave recklessly on the road. As a responsible citizen of the state stood to pay toll at the toll plaza. There came a faulty truck driven by an unskilled, inexperienced driver and rammed the private car. Is this not a clear case of manslaughter? Shouldn't the truck owners be held responsible for this incident? Then why haven't they been arrested yet? Why isn't there a homicide case against them? The same scenario applies to the road clashes in Faridpur. Both pickup vans and bus owners are equally responsible there, yet no action has been taken against them.

Even on the Expressway in Dhaka, two buses from a ride-sharing transportation service were competing recklessly. When one bus attempted to overtake at excessive speed, it lost control and crashed into the wall of the newly constructed terminal near Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, injuring a civil aviation engineer who was riding a motorcycle to work. This reckless behavior is not limited to ride-sharing transport but is prevalent among all city service buses in Dhaka. Especially due to reckless overtaking and forcing passengers to disembark in the middle of the road, accidents and fatalities occur one after another daily. Even buses from distant rural areas, operating from the Mohakhali Terminal, are behaving similarly recklessly on the capital's roads, forcing passengers to alight in the middle of the road. If any passenger protests, they are assaulted. Complaints of assault against passengers are most common against services like Ena Paribahan, Alam Asia, and Onno Paribahan, yet no action is taken against the owners of these services.

The issue of reckless driving and faulty vehicles on the roads remains unaddressed by the relevant government authorities, indicating a failure. Despite being aware of this issue at the highest levels of government, no appropriate action has been taken. The incidents in Jhalokathi and Faridpur clearly indicate that heavy trucks and pickup vans were operating on the roads in a reckless manner. The drivers of these heavy vehicles also lacked proper licenses. Inexperienced young drivers were given licenses for light vehicles, yet heavy vehicles were entrusted to them by the truck owners. This implies that the owners of both the truck and the pickup van are directly responsible for these two accidents. Despite claiming the lives of 28 innocent people in these two incidents, there has been no visible initiative from the administration to take legal action against the owners. The responsibility of the administration seems to end with only apprehending the drivers and their assistants! If offenders are not ensured punishment for road crimes, we will continue to witness horrifying scenes of death on the roads every day. Perhaps, our future generations might just perish under the wheels of reckless buses and trucks on the roads!

Whenever a road accident occurs, some officials of the administration rush to blame pedestrians for crossing the road, while neglecting everything else. Yet, in Dhaka itself, there are several zebra crossings without any signboards before them. There is no way for a driver to know beforehand that there is a zebra crossing ahead! There is a zebra crossing just a little ahead on the opposite side of Ramna Police Station, near the Dhaka Metropolitan Police Headquarters. If one waits here for a few minutes, any aware person would hesitate to cross. There is a very small zebra crossing signboard here, hardly visible to anyone. And where the zebra crossing is well-marked, the area is extremely busy. From here, vehicles rush forward to climb the Moghbazar Flyover, the road to Paribagh is behind, and ahead is the road to Holy Family Hospital. The way the zebra crossing has been set up here is nothing short of a death trap! The condition of the remaining zebra crossings in Dhaka is even more dangerous than this. Perhaps, there is nowhere else in the world where zebra crossings are so risky. When two buses compete in overtaking, causing fatalities by running over pedestrians, these administrators remain silent.

The situation is the same with U-turns. There are multiple crossings on Banani Road 11. Some allow U-turns, some don't. Where U-turns are not allowed, signboards are placed under the tree leaves. If someone misses seeing them and takes a U-turn, a traffic police officer emerges from behind the trees with a smirk and appears in front of the vehicle. Then we all know what happens next. The question is, why are U-turn signboards hidden under the leaves of trees? If a signboard is not visible, and a vehicle mistakenly takes a U-turn leading to an accident, who will be responsible? Perhaps, Dhaka city is the only city where U-turn-related signboards are hidden under the leaves of trees!

If the government genuinely desires, controlling road accidents is not an insurmountable task. Firstly, the entrenched syndicates in the transport sector need to be broken by applying pressure for an extended period. The inefficient transportation authorities need to be reformed with the application of smart technologies. Instead of relying on delegations, a separate independent transportation management board should be established with competent and trained individuals to manage the roads effectively. The use of digital technology must be ensured in road management. While we have become capable of implementing digital management in various other sectors, it has not yet been possible in road transportation. Strict measures need to be taken against reckless drivers, including imposing harsh penalties for faulty vehicles on the roads and holding vehicle owners accountable for entrusting heavy vehicles to incompetent drivers. Digital ride-sharing services must be made entirely cashless. Unless lawlessness is eradicated from public transportation, any day, at any moment, anyone could end up being a victim of a fatal accident, just like those on the highways of Jhalokathi, Faridpur, or near the airport. How much longer will our roads remain unsafe? How much longer will the streets be filled with corpses?

Author: Journalist