Driving us crazy

Bumper to bumper traffic is the norm in Dhaka

EACH morning, the media carries news of lives lost on the roads and highways of Bangladesh. Most of these are avoidable, if only the automobiles responsible were driven skillfully and carefully.
Taking a ride in any vehicle, be it a rickshaw, CNG, car, bus, whatever, is risking one's life and limbs. There is no escaping from risk, since the whole traffic system is responsible. Focusing on Dhaka traffic just about tells the whole story.
Driving in Dhaka is possibly one of the most hazardous, as well as stupid, undertakings one could venture on. Hazardous because of mindless driving patterns of most road users, and stupid because you knowingly get into a situation that you could avoid by delegating the driving to someone else. Still, we do things that we do.
While a few Dhaka drivers are well-mannered and, most importantly, possess good driving attributes, a large majority are devoid of driving sense, let alone skills, are rude, irresponsible and rather cavalier about it.
Most drivers in Bangladesh have just one mission in life; how to get from point A to point B in the shortest possible time. They do not believe in lane discipline. They do not care who is in the way as long as it is not a vehicle with flag, or a police sergeant.
They do not care if they are holding up an ambulance begging for clear passage. They do not give a hoot if it is an elderly man or woman, or a young mother with children, trying to cross the street. And, keeping the intersection free? Signaling? Right of way? These are as foreign as the man on the moon, and do not concern Bangladesh drivers.
Dhaka is about the only city where, while you are making a right-turn at the lights, other drivers in lanes to your left, also turning right, speed up, pass you by the left and then muscle on to your lane, jumping in front of you, causing you to stop in your tracks to avoid crashing into the offender. The offender speeds on leaving you in jitters, and if you slow down too much the fellow behind you rudely wakes you up with a blaring horn.
In Bangladesh, it is quite common to see a car reversing onto the major road in opposite direction of oncoming traffic, holding up all traffic and notching up the risk of accidents. Cars also come out of roadside houses, reversing onto the main road and bringing traffic to a standstill. Nobody thinks anything of it.
A minimal understanding of traffic patterns tells you that traffic flow in any particular lane should be in one direction, not both, at any one time!
What most of our drivers are very good at, and love doing, is snaking in and out of traffic lanes, traveling side by side, literally inches away from the car in the adjacent lane, bumper to bumper with cars in front and rear, and never use the signal. Thank God for the efficient brakes cars have today, as people drive mostly on the accelerator and the brakes and, of course, the horn.
The automatic transmission is a great leveler as you cannot tell the difference between a good driver, who uses the appropriate gears, and a not-so-good driver.
When we learnt driving, we were told to keep the headlights on till half-an-hour after sun-up and half-an-hour before sundown. Bangladesh drivers fervently believe this is a wasted exercise and drive without lights, in near darkness, way after the sun has gone down.
The concept of defensive driving, switching on the lights on a foggy, day is not only not practiced but is also almost unknown. I drove at night on the Dhaka-Chittagong highway last weekend. It was extremely busy with hundreds of trucks carrying heavy loads far beyond their authorised limit. Most of the trucks did not have their rear lights on, some did not have tail-lights and some were even without one of the two headlights.
It is truly a miracle that there are not many more accidents on that road, I guess the innumerable near-misses keep drivers awake and alert.
One must congratulate Bangladesh drivers for their incredible confidence in themselves and their machines. They come at a high speed from side roads to the main road and screech to a halt, only inches away from traffic already there, barring which, they continue at the same high speed on the main street.
Taxis have a code of conduct of their own, albeit, unacceptable. Some small, tinny, black taxis dart in and out of traffic lanes. They share the roadway to the same extent as the huge buses, do. They appear suddenly, surreptitiously, behind or alongside you, and then leave you to eat dust.
If they do hit you they do not have much to lose, and it is very unlikely that they carry valid insurance cover. The taxis hardly ever use their indicators, like buses and most cars. The driving pattern is about the same for all. Nobody stays in the same lane long enough to allow signaling while making lane change.
In most cities of the world a policeman/woman on traffic duty reigns supreme, except in Bangladesh. Here, the officer stands at traffic lights as an adjunct, with a thin cane in his hand, and waves traffic about with the cane, go, stop, turn right, left, etc. and quite often he overrides lights and lets the traffic go through the red light till he feels it appropriate to stop, even if the light is green. Otherwise, as light changes to red and the policeman signals traffic to stop, cars continue crossing the lights till the volume of cars from the lanes opened up by the policeman forces the offenders to cease.
But the policeman does not, or maybe cannot, take any action. I have never seen anyone being given a citation or a fine, or any other penalty.
The ills of Bangladeshi drivers emanate primarily from ignorance, inadequate, or improper and/or no formal training, lack of accountability, corruption, escape from punishment, low wages, and overall low grade performance of the transport sector, to name a few.
Comparatively lower level of formal education also plays a major role. These are deep rooted and need to be remedied.
Reorientation of tens of thousands of drivers will require substantial resources, and it may not even be possible to carry it out within a reasonable period of time, let alone fund it. However, the resources that are available are deemed to be quite adequate to deliver a vastly improved situation that will be orderly, efficient to a level of acceptability, and less threatening to life and limb.
The desired results call for many inputs but, most importantly, for political will and administrative zeal.
Like we always do, we leave the problem to the government, and that may take a very long time to bear any fruit as the government may have other priorities. In this instance, we may share the problem collectively with the authorities and initially take it upon ourselves, to start getting things right.
A tall order, indeed, but then, it is a sizeable problem. Each day, if we promise not to break but to follow traffic rules, and be a little patient and make other drivers conscious of our efforts, and if the protectors of the law enforce it strictly and penalise offenders, maybe we shall achieve something by the end of the day.
A program can be initiated where videos of ideal driving may be made, and learners may be exposed to these. Drivers aspiring to get a license shall need to see the videos, and have their skills tested during the driving test.
Adherence to legal requirements and enforcement of the law is vital to the program. Again, this mainly needs good laws updated for current day traffic, and the single-minded aspiration to implement them without any fear or favour. Nothing is impossible when desire to achieve success is driven by sincerity and determination, among other things.

Shawkat Anwar is a financial consultant currently living in Maryland, USA.