Quader seeks lawmakers' role
Transport owners and workers have to be more sincere while the lawmakers should work actively towards enforcing traffic rules in their constituencies to ensure road safety, said Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader yesterday.
“If the transport owners had become sincere, we would not have seen so many unfit vehicles plying the city roads…,” he said.
The minister said this at a discussion marking National Safe Roads Day.
The ministry's road transport and highways division and Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) organised the programme in the capital's Osmani Memorial Auditorium.
The theme of the day was: drive carefully, return home safely. The day was observed for the first time in the country through organising different events.
The minister also called upon the drivers to drive carefully to ensure safety of the lives of the passengers as well as theirs. At the same time, all must obey traffic rules and pedestrians should cross the roads from the designated places for safety, he said.
Over the years, the government took several initiatives -- enforcing speed limit, banning unfit vehicles, training drivers and prohibiting driving on the wrong side -- to bring discipline and ensure safety on roads, but none of those was implemented properly.
As a result, accidents and deaths have become imminent on the roads.
According to the BRTA, around 1,794 people died in about 1,837 road accidents across the country in the first eight months of this year, and 2,463 deaths occurred in 2,566 accidents in 2016.
Obaidul Quader said influential people often do not obey traffic rules and drive their vehicles on the wrong side. If they obey rules, others will learn from them.
Those who will violate rules by driving on the wrong side should be punished even if they are powerful. He also condemned the Dhaka University students for such violation.
Regarding enforcement of traffic laws, he said the ministry had to go through a delayed process by sending letters to different government bodies for implementing any initiatives. The delay eventually reduced effectiveness, he said.
About National Safe Roads Day, the minister said it was not observed like it could have been as the finance ministry allocated only Tk 50,000 to organise the programme.
“Such a half-hearted observance is useless. I do not support it. The day should be observed wholeheartedly to create awareness,” he said.
“I have been working continuously over the last five and a half years… I did not get the desired results yet,” said Quader. “The roads should have been made safer for the future generation. We are trying relentlessly. People will have to be patient and cooperate…,” he said.
MAN Siddique, secretary of the ministry; actor Ilias Kanchan, also chairman of Nirapad Sarak Chai; Mashiur Rahman; chairman of BRTA; and Monirul Islam, a member of the parliamentary standing committee on the ministry; also spoke.
In Brahmanbaria, the district administration and BRTA organised a rally and a discussion to mark the day, reports our correspondent.
On June 5, the cabinet approved a proposal to declare October 22 as National Safe Roads Day, recognising Kanchan's long and ceaseless campaign on road safety under the banner of Nirapad Sarak Chai.
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