Blatant defiance of highway rules continues

We reported a road crash on the Dhaka-Chittagong highway that resulted in 10 deaths and 30 injured on February 27 because the driver was busy talking on his mobile phone! The very next day we caught on film, a covered van driving on the wrong side of the highway in the Sonargaon upazila of Narayanganj district.

Analysis by BUET's Accident Research Institute (ACI) taking into account road accidents from 1998 – 2015 informs us that 53 percent of accidents are due to speeding and reckless driving. The second biggest reason is drivers' casual mindset about breaking rules and showing little regard for safety of others on roads that accounts for 37 percent of accidents. With some 3.3 million vehicles plying our roads and highways and where only 1.8 million drivers have valid licenses, it does not come as a surprise that there are so many accidents on our busy highways on which heavy vehicles like buses and trucks travel. Media report compilations put the average number of people dying due to road accidents is 9 people every day.

So, what are the authorities doing about this? According to BRTA, it has mobile courts on the highways, but nothing close to the numbers needed. Is it merely a question of mobile courts, or is it more to do with allowing the illegal trade in fake licenses to flourish, looking the other way as unfit vehicles magically obtain fitness certificates every year and the lack of enforcement of traffic rules by the police? At the end of the day, the government has an obligation to protect its people from such murderous attitude of drivers breaking the laws of the road. Until policymakers decide to plug the holes in the system and make law enforcers accountable for failing to uphold the law, casualties on the highways will not see a downward trend.