Will the authorities ever pay for deaths caused by unfit vehicles?
On September 5, around midnight, at least eight people were killed and 50 sustained injuries when two buses collided head-on on the Rangpur-Dinajpur highway in Rangpur. How many times in the last year, months or even one month have we come across similar news of devastating road crashes? A common citizen could be forgiven for losing count. But what of the government? We are frustrated at the apparent oblivion of the relevant authorities when it comes to the country's awful state of road safety. According to the Road Safety Foundation, at least 519 people died in 458 road crashes in August 2022 alone. But this is no wonder, unfortunately, given that – as per the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority's (BRTA) own data from February – more than five lakh vehicles plying our roads have no fitness clearance, while at least 10 lakh registered vehicles are being driven by unlicensed drivers.
In fact, this newspaper has reported that neither of the two buses involved in the Rangpur crash had the necessary route permits. Moreover, one of the buses, under Joyana Paribahan, actually violated the Road Transport Act 2018, as its registration was switched from being under Rozina Enterprise without the BRTA's approval. Worse still, the bus' fitness clearance expired in May 2011. But worst of all, the Joyana Paribahan bus is owned by the general secretary of Bangladesh Bus Truck Owners Association (BBTOA). The fact that a top transport leader is able to run an unfit bus under his ownership for 11 years testifies to the authorities' total lack of care for ensuring road safety.
Is any of this really shocking? Four years after its hasty introduction in 2018, in the face of the students' Road Safety Movement 2018, the RTA 2018 remains unimplemented for the most part. Within this time, it has also been amended numerous times – not to suit the needs of citizens, but to fulfil the demands of transport owners. Meanwhile, as mentioned above, thousands of lives continue to be crushed to death on our roads, which are chock-full of unchecked and unfit vehicles.
As we do at least every other week on this very column, we would urge authorities to wake up and do all that is necessary to lessen the number of road crashes across the country. The Road Transport Act must be implemented strictly. All unfit and unregistered vehicles must be brought to book by the BRTA, while only licensed drivers should be allowed to drive if the government really wants to cut down road crashes by half by 2030. Authorities must know that monetary compensation for road crash victims is not a long-term solution for the disease that is our dismal road safety situation.