The National Road Safety Council (NRSC) on Thursday recommended forming a task force to bring discipline on roads and highways and control accidents. Besides, NRSC submitted a 111 point recommendations to the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA). The committee formed earlier to restore discipline in the transport sector and control road accidents across the country also recommended taking 50 immediate, 32 short-term and 29 long term programs in this regard.
The committee led by former Shipping Minister Shahjahan Khan submitted the recommendations to the Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader at the Secretariat in the city. “We are considering to form a task force to control road mishaps and bring discipline on roads and high ways and in the transport sector following the proposal given by the committee,” Quader said, after receiving the recommendations.
“In this regard, we will make the final decision at the meeting of the national road safety council scheduled to be held on September 5.” The committee in its report mentioned that roads and highways across the country are in bad shape. Besides, inexperienced drivers, plying of rundown vehicles and faulty roads and highway construction are also causing frequent accidents.
Apart from these, neglecting to perform all duties and responsibilities of officials of concerned ministries is also a contributing road disaster across the country every day. According to a report, desperate driving also continued to take away lives on roads and highways every day. Members of different law enforcement agencies posted at important roads and highways are failing to control the reckless driving, especially during the night, the report says.
The report also says all stakeholders including government, private organizations, different socio-cultural organizations, voluntary groups, teachers, students and people from all walks of life will have to raise awareness about road safety. Earlier a 15-member committee, headed by former minister Shahjahan Khan, was formed in the wake of frequent deadly road mishaps in the capital, other cities, and highways.
According to BRTA officials, steps will be taken as per the recommendations of the committee. According to political commitments, it is urgently needed to restore discipline in the transport sector and check road accidents. Road fatalities continued to occur across the country amid demands for road safety. In the recent past, there has been an alarming rise in road accidents, particularly on highways.
According to the World Bank statistics, the annual fatality rate from road accidents is found to be 85.6 fatalities per 10,000 vehicles. Hence, traveling on the roads in the country have become highly unsafe. Accident Research Institute (ARI) of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology or BUET, at least 40,000 people were killed while about 60,000 others are reported to have suffered serious life-long injuries across the country over the last five years.
Besides, the country also suffers an economic loss of human resources of an estimated Tk 380 billion each year because of road accidents. Over-speeding is responsible for 53 percent of casualties in road mishaps while careless driving for 38 percent of fatalities and the rest for other reasons.
