Heavy Vehicle Licence: Relax the experience requirement

Leaders of transport owners and workers yesterday requested the authorities concerned to relax the mandatory experience required for getting driving licences for heavy vehicles.

As per the law, a driver must have at least six years' of driving experience to be eligible for a licence for heavy vehicles.

The leaders made the plea claiming that there was a huge crisis of drivers for heavy vehicles and many owners, amid the ongoing crackdown on unfit vehicles and drivers without licences, took their vehicles off the road because they do not have drivers with the proper licence.

They made the request at a meeting held at the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) with Secretary Nazrul Islam of Road Transport and Highway Division in the chair, three participants of the meeting told The Daily Star last night.

As per the Motor Vehicle Ordinance-1983, a person first needs to get a learner's licence. After three months, he or she can have a licence to drive light vehicles. After three years, he or she can apply for licence to drive medium-type vehicles, like large microbuses and pickups. After three years, he or she can seek licence to drive heavy vehicles.

One of the meeting participants requesting anonymity said transport leaders told the meeting that around 70 percent bus drivers only have licences for light- or medium-type vehicles even though they have been driving heavy vehicles for years.

They said the problem was that law enforcers were not allowing drivers with light or medium licences to drive heavy vehicles. If the experience requirement was relaxed, those drivers would be able to get the heavy vehicle licence, they added.

The transport leaders said many bus helpers learn driving from their drivers. So why would they require six years to get a licence for driving buses, another meeting participant quoted a transport leader.

“The authorities, however, did not make any decision in this regard,” a meeting participant said.

Officials present at the meeting said the issue was related to law and the forum was not empowered to make such decisions but it could recommend higher authorities, a participant told The Daily Star.

Prominent road safety campaigner Ilias Kanchan, who was at the meeting, said the matter was discussed at the meeting after he had left and that he had heard about it later on.

As per global practice, a person can have heavy-vehicle licence after holding light and medium-vehicle licence for a certain period of time, which is the case in Bangladesh too, said Ilias, chairman of Nirapad Sarak Chai movement.

“But, what they are now demanding is wrong and it will make our roads riskier,” he told The Daily Star last night.

Khondaker Enayet Ullah, secretary general of Bangladesh Road Transport Owners Association, said they discussed the licence issue but did not give any proposal to relax the experience requirements.

He, however, said, “A person gets licence for heavy vehicles after six and a half year of driving. Our point is, if a person is habituated in driving buses, can pass tests for driving trucks, then why would he not be given a licence for heavy vehicles?

“If a person requires six and a half years to get licence for heavy vehicles, then how many years will he drive? This is absurd. We discussed it,” Enayet said.

The meeting also discussed the progress in implementing directives, including drive-time limitations on drivers of long-haul vehicles issued by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to prevent accidents.

Following an unprecedented student movement for road safety, police announced Traffic Week on August 5 and launched a drive against errant vehicles and drivers across the country. Around 1.3 lakh cases have filed against errant vehicles and drivers in the last seven days.