Expendable lives

When we look at newspaper reports, what is the most common cause of mortality among Bangladeshis that we find? According to reports published in The Daily Star, road accidents killed at least 4,284 people and injured 9,112 others in 2017, while the figures were 3,412 and 8,572 respectively in 2016. The numbers of accidents and deaths increased by 15.82 percent and 25.56 percent respectively in 2017 compared to 2016.

A recent addition to these casualties is my paternal uncle, who lost his life while trying to cross a busy highway in the middle of the night. There are three worrisome aspects that have surfaced after his demise that are directly relatable to this whole affair of road accidents. The first one is that he did not use an over-bridge, which was available exactly at the spot where the accident had taken place. Secondly, his family did not pursue any judicial process to seek justice and fair compensation for his life. Finally, a week after my uncle's death, a negotiation took place between his family and the transport agency that was found guilty of the fatality. Both of these parties settled for a paltry Taka one lakh in compensation for my uncle's life. These three developments clearly indicate why people are regularly falling prey to sudden deaths on the roads and also, what happens once the deceased is buried and is no longer able to speak for himself.

Every time we leave the house, we are gripped with the insecurity of not knowing whether we will return home safely. As road accidents are happening almost every day and in almost every corner of the country, anything can happen to anyone at any given moment. Even more worrying is the fact that all the initiatives that have been taken by the government so far—like the formulation of the Road Transport Act 2018, observance of several police weeks to make the commuters and the pedestrians aware of traffic rules and the Prime Minister's 17-point directives given in 2018 that include limiting the drive-time of drivers on long-route vehicles—have turned out to be futile in curbing the number of road fatalities. This outright failure from the highest policy-making body indicates that something is going really wrong in our transport sector. It also prompts us to delve deeper into the underlying factors.

Much has been said about the causes of road accidents, including unfit vehicles, reckless driving, physically and mentally incompetent drivers, unregulated working hours for the drivers, poor traffic management and lack of awareness among the general people about traffic rules. Unless each one is addressed individually, enacting new laws or punishing the drivers will not bring about any long-term changes on our roads. According to data from the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA), there are 31 lakh vehicles across the country without fitness certificates and 77 percent of the drivers do not hold valid licenses. Although BRTA has 23 training institutes across the country, only 14 of them are currently operating and only one of them is providing some sort of training. There are around 70 lakh drivers and transport workers in our country. If only one training institute is designated to train them and if two-thirds of these workers operate without any approval, the negative and far-reaching impacts of such a situation should be quite obvious to everyone.

The topmost causes for road accidents are speeding and overtaking. These tendencies originate because our transport workers are paid on a contractual basis, not in weekly or monthly wages. Their earnings depend on how many trips they can make in a single day. As a result, introducing a standard payment system would be a positive first step in controlling the rate of reckless driving. Besides, there are 222 blind spots on our highways where the majority of accidents take place. These points need to be redesigned to prevent road accidents. According to Osman Ali, general secretary of the Bangladesh Road Transport Worker's Federation, only Tk 200 to 500 crore is required to perform this task. Putting all the blame on drivers without correcting the faulty designs of our roads is in no way acceptable.

When renowned filmmaker Tareque Masud along with cinematographer Mishuk Munier and three members of his film production crew were killed in a road accident on the Dhaka-Aricha highway in Manikganj on August 13, 2011, the court sentenced the driver to life imprisonment in 2017. But then, the whole country came to a standstill because of the strikes imposed by transport workers and owners. The same thing happened with the Road Transport Act 2018. When the government tried to enforce the law in November 2019, transport associations once again called strikes, demanding amendments to some sections of the law. In an unfortunate development, the government finally gave in to their demands and formed a committee with three ministers, which came up with some suggested changes to the Act. Although these suggestions are yet to be made public, the confusion created as a result means the law is not being fully implemented and many of the provisions—like making all offences under the act non-bailable and fining a worker Taka five lakh for involvement in a road accident—have become wholly ineffective.

The power and influence that is wielded by transport workers pose serious threats to the safety of the millions of commuters who are directly reliant on these people on a daily basis. Their confidence in their impunity basically comes from their ties with socially and politically influential figures. The seven million transport workers act as a significant vote bank and as a source of much-needed muscle power for our political elite. In turn, the latter group functions as a source of security for the workers, who often suffer from a feeling of helplessness resulting from their economic and social positions. If this mutually benefitting syndicate cannot be broken, both the workers and the owners of the transport sector will continue to enjoy impunity against the laws of our land.

The loopholes hidden in the Road Transport Act 2018 need to be discussed too. This Act replaced the Motor Vehicle Ordinance 1983, which used to contain a provision for suing not only the drivers but also the owners of the transport companies. But the new Act removes this right of the victims and replaces it with a mechanism of monetary assistance. The Act also removes the provision to set up a Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal. Chapter 10 of the Road Transport Act replaces a road accident victim's right to sue the vehicle owners for compensation before a tribunal with the right to apply for "financial aid". So while transport owners had a hefty price to pay if their vehicles killed or injured any person under the 1983 ordinance, the 2018 Act grants them total exemption from such a liability.

According to Taqbir Huda, a research specialist at Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), imprisoning a reckless driver and slapping him with an unrealistic fine is not the best way to address the mayhem on our roads, given that reckless drivers are the symptom and not the cause. The tendency to speed among the drivers is the direct result of the way transport owners operate the industry and the working conditions that are imposed on the workers by them. So it is only when these owners are held accountable that the root causes of road accidents can effectively be addressed.

To prevent road accidents from happening, we should firstly focus on redesigning and realigning our highways and local streets according to the needs of the modern transport system. At the same time, we have to cultivate a culture of abiding by the already existing transport rules among the citizens. Practices like keeping earphones plugged in while walking on the road or driving a vehicle, and not using over-bridges while crossing the street, have to be consciously abandoned by the people. Finally, the enactment of laws is not enough; successful implementation of these laws is also necessary. Enforcing the existing laws has to be a top priority for the government. Policy-makers have to create laws keeping in mind the plight of the victims of road accidents and the punishment has to be borne by both the transport workers and the owners of the vehicles. Establishment of the rule of law and strict adherence to our laws have to be ensured by the concerned authorities if we want to truly reduce the amount of bloodshed on our vicious streets.

Muhammad A Bashed is a member of the editorial team at The Daily Star.