The country's roads and highways have turned into deathtraps as deadly accidents are continuing to happen there killing scores of people every day. On Saturday, a deadly road accident took place at Dhaka-Faridpur highway’s Dhuldi area under Faridpur Sadar Upazila killing at least 8 people and injuring more than 20, which is just an example of the anarchy going on across the country.
Although the government and non-government organisations have taken various initiatives and awareness building programmes to ensure road safety, they failed to stop or minimize road accidents mainly due to unskilled drivers’ tendency to engage in frantic driving. Road accidents can be reduced by at least 50 percent within 2020 by implementing the electoral pledges of the government, experts opine.
They allege that the rates of road accidents are increasing alarmingly across the country mainly due to lack of discipline on roads, unskilled drivers, lack of respect to law by both drivers and passersby, unfit vehicles and ultimately lack of strong monitoring measures by the authorities concerned. A study released on Saturday by Nirapad Sarak Chai, an organisation working on road safety and awareness, said during the last Eid-ul-Adha a total of 185 people died in road accidents when 355 people were severely wounded.
On Friday, 6 persons died and 8 were critically injured in a road mishap in Gopalganj. Meanwhile, government has formed a 22-member body at the latest meeting of road safety council to bring discipline on roads and controlling road accidents. After forming the committee, Road, Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader said that a taskforce will also be formed to implement the recommendations of the committee.
Sources said a number of committees formed in this regard in the past suggested a number of recommendations but most of them are yet to be implemented. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also gave a five-point directives for prevention of road accident in June last year which are yet to be implemented properly. Experts have also found that extortions in road transport sector is a big reason behind road accidents while reckless driving, defective infrastructure, lack of awareness are also equally responsible for the frequent accidents.
Former Shipping Minister and transport leader Shajahan Khan said that six to seven ministries have to be involved in implementing the recommendations. So they have suggested to form a strong commission in this regard, he added. The organisation, 'Nirapad Sarak Chai' has released their study in a press conference on Saturday.
The study report suggested the 'National Road Safety Council' to be an effective organisation in preventing road accidents, to undertake extensive programmes for training drivers from both government and private sector, stop anarchy in charging excessive fair during Eid season, controlling overload, use separate lane in highways and stop plying of unfit vehicles on roads.
As part of longterm measures, the organisation suggested to run TV program to make people aware of road discipline, inclusion of accident related warnings in the curriculum of school, strictly controlling violation of traffic signals, scattered parking, overtaking, reckless riding, and roof riding etc. Mentioning that removing defects on the Dhaka-Aricha highway has contributed effectively in reducing the accidents on the route, Liton Ershad also suggested to find out the defects on many other highways so that accident rate may come down significantly.
