Fatal road accidents on the highways in Bangladesh have by now become regular phenomena. The number of mishaps on some highways, including Dhaka-Chattogram Highway and Dhaka-Sylhet Highway, continues to rise with hundreds of casualties.
About 43 per cent of the total road accidents take place on the highways in the country, according to a study of the Accident Research Institute (ARI) of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET).
In 2020 about 6,000 people were killed and 8,500 were injured in nearly 5,000 road accidents across the country, according to annual road accident monitoring reports of some organisations, including ARI, Bangladesh Passengers Welfare Association (BPWA) and Road Safety Foundation.
The highway accidents are attributed to the plying of small vehicles and motorcycles, driving without licence, reckless driving, absence of service lanes, dangerous turns and highway- side infrastructures, shops and kitchen markets, said experts.
They also blame the lack of institutional capacity and enforcement of laws and regulations by the authorities concerned, violation of traffic rules and absence of strict law for repeated accidents on the highways.
Dr SM Sohel Mahmud, Assistant Professor at ARI of BUET, said the small vehicles, including three-wheelers, battery-run and unregistered vehicles locally known as Nasimon and Karimon, ply highways and often collide with large vehicles causing a staggering number of fatalities on the highways.
However, major reason behind the accidents on the highways in 2020 was movement of small vehicles. An official of Sylhet highway zone police said CNG-run auto-rickshaws are responsible for most of the accidents on highways. He said that more than 800 auto-rickshaws were sued in a single month this year.
The road safety experts said that enactment of fresh law and its strict enforcement are indispensable to bring back discipline on the highway and prevent accidents. The removal of highway side infrastructures and kitchen markets, keeping separate lane for small vehicles or removal of such vehicles, removal of unfit vehicles, keeping the connection points between highways and link roads, and maintaining speed limit in the accident-prone areas are necessary, experts added.
However, these points are mentioned in some existing laws, including the Bangladesh Road Transport Act, 2018. But the laws are not sufficient to prevent highway accidents.
Against this backdrop, the government has designed a fresh law, replacing the Highways Act of 1925, aiming to end indiscipline and illegal occupation on highways and to prevent the road accidents on the highway.
The Cabinet on June 28 this year approved the draft of the ‘Highway Act, 2021’ with the provision of a maximum of two years’ imprisonment and a fine of Tk 500,000 for violation of law. The existing law has a provision of a simple imprisonment for six months and a maximum fine of Tk 10,000. Draft of the fresh law is likely to be placed in the next session of the Parliament, sources said.
Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam said that the move to enact the fresh law was taken to regulate the country’s highways, construction, development and maintenance activities on the highway and safe movement of vehicles.
According to the proposed law, small vehicles’ movement will be restricted, while the highways can’t be used to dry crops or for any other purposes. The draft law also imposes fine for piling up goods on the roads and driving on the wrong side. It also proposes bringing the Highway Police under the Road Transport and Bridges Ministry which is currently under the Home Ministry.
After enactment of the law, government and non-government utility service providers have to take prior approval and pay charge to install lines beside the highways; and the authorities have to shift their establishments at their own cost if necessary for maintenance of highways.
Prof Shamsul Hoque, former ARI director, said that the number of accidents on highways would decline largely with the enforcement of the fresh law and its proper enforcement.
There are about 21,300 kilometers of highways, including over 3,800 kilometers of national highways, over 4,200 kilometers of regional highways and about 13,200 kilometers of district highways, under the Roads and Highway Department (RHD).