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Acute shortage of lawful drivers

most transports at unskilled, under aged drivers hands


Published : 20 Nov 2019 08:48 PM | Updated : 05 Sep 2020 12:55 AM

Most of the heavy road transports like trucks and buses are driven by unskilled and under aged drivers due to an acute shortages in the number of lawful and skilled drivers. According to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), there are only 14 lakh registered drivers against 20 lakh registered motor vehicles in capital Dhaka. Accordingly, there are only 21,000 drivers against more than one lakh heavy transports while the number of other drivers is around 4 lakh against more than 5 lakh light motor vehicles.

The sources also said due to shortages in the number of registered drivers, huge number of vehicles are driven by unskilled or under-aged people, who are not capable to deal with the vehicles. A large number of drivers are found to be aged between 15 to 18 years although a person must have to be at least 20 years old to get a license. Those unskilled and underage people are driving vehicles allegedly through bribing police and a section of officials concerned.

According to sources, Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) so far have issued about 31 lakh driving licenses while as of July 2019, the number of registered motor vehicles are 4,057,743. The BRTA did not provide any concrete number of driving licenses issued, but one official said the ballpark figure is somewhere around 3.1 million. That leaves roughly 950,000, or nearly one million motor vehicles being driven by unlicensed drivers.

Kazi Md Shifun Newaz, assistant professor at the Accident Research Institute of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet), said, “There is already a gap between registered motor vehicles and valid driving licenses. On top of that, there are even unskilled drivers who get valid licenses. The qualifications of the test supervisors are questionable. Driving licenses should be given under strict supervision.”

It was found that in August 2017, there were only 142 BRTA approved trainers throughout the country at 100 registered training centres. Assistant Professor Shifun Newaz stressed that the real problem lies in drivers with light or medium motor vehicle licenses driving heavy motor vehicles.

According to the existing guidelines, it takes at least six years to obtain a driving license for heavy vehicles. The researcher noted that bus and truck drivers are extremely reluctant to wait six years for a license.