CNG-driven vehicle explodes!

It was a tragic day for the families of the thirteen people who were killed on February 10 when a CNG-driven covered van exploded as it collided with a bus on the Dhaka-Khulna highway in Faridpur's Nagarkanda area. CNG-driven vehicles are not supposed to explode when a collision occurs. This latest incident merely confirms what we have been reporting for some time now, and that is that there is no authority to check whether vehicles are being converted to run CNG in workshops adhering to proper safety standards. There have been ample cases of workshops using substandard cylinders and shoddy workmanship to fit CNG kits to vehicles like the one that exploded taking away so many lives in Faridpur.

Although the initial death count was thirteen as we went to press, that count may rise as some of the injured were reported to have suffered serious injury. The question we must ask ourselves at this juncture is how many more unnecessary deaths will be necessary before the concerned authorities wake up and take notice of these moving bombs plying in their thousands on the highways and inside the cities? Every now and then a vehicle's gas cylinder explodes in the CNG filling stations and it makes the headlines. But nothing comes of the investigation other than perhaps slapping a fine on the vehicle owner. This sort of slap-on-the-wrist response will not make our streets and highways safer. We need rules of business laid out in black and white and workshops found guilty of wrongdoing need to be taken to task.