Chaotic vehicular movement, reckless driving causing frequent accidents
A highway policeman with almost no logistics has to keep vigil on average over a 12-kilometre highway, meaning major parts of the 11,806-kilometre roads always remain out of law enforcers’ watch.
Lack of proper vigil by highway police allows drivers to disobey traffic rules at will that often causes severe accidents and makes the roads a death trap.
The Highway Police Department, which is entrusted to control traffic, check road mishaps and other crimes, has only 2,042 personnel to keep watch on the roads in two alternate shifts.
Apart from shortage of manpower and logistics, alleged corruption by law enforcers is also a major reason for non-enforcement of traffic rules on the highways.
At least 45 people died on the roads during this Eid holidays alone, with drivers racing each other to compete and make up lost time and caring little about safe driving.
According to the National Road Traffic Accident Report 2008 of BRTA, 2,210 people died in crashes outside the cities and 513 in the cities. Statistics of the Highway Police Department show around 500 deaths on highways in the first half of 2010.
Deaths of a secretary and an additional secretary on July 31 added to the long list of casualties. They were killed in a crash in Manikganj on their official trip to Gopalganj.
Constant rise in both slow and fast moving vehicles, over speed, overloading, vehicular defects, hazardous roads and unsafe environment are also behind ever-growing road accidents, say BRTA and highway police officials.
The maximum approved speed of a bus and a truck is 56 kilometres per hour and 40 kmph on the highway respectively, but none abide by this rule.
“I have been travelling to my village home in Satkhira by bus for the last 12 years. I never saw any law enforcer halt a recklessly driven bus on the highway,” said Saifur Rahman, a private serviceman in Dhaka.
He added he never found a bus running within its legally permitted speed on the highways.
“Drivers in general hardly follow the traffic rules, especially speed limits, causing fatal accidents,” said Director (enforcement) of Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) Tapan Kumar Sarkar.
The highway police however said they have filed 1,383 cases using speed detectors, 2,533 cases using perception against the drivers on charge of violating speed limit this year till July.
They also filed 785 cases on charge of overtaking, 194 cases for competitive driving and 1,578 cases on charge of bearing fake driving licences.
However, the highway cops have only 34 speed detectors to detect speeding vehicles on 7,641 km national highway and 4,165 km regional highway. Three of those devices are always used to train up the force.
Anisur Rahman who owns several trucks said a big chunk of his income is spent on bribing traffic or highway policemen to avert undue harassment on the roads.
“If you pay police at some specified locations and districts, none will bother whether you follow traffic rules or not,” he said. “Just bribe them regularly or you will face harassment… they would at least keep your truck halted for sometime if they find no fault to file a case,” the truck owner alleged.
He said almost all drivers overload trucks to pocket some extra money without informing the owners. This misdeed is supposed to be detected at load control stations set up at different places on highways. But they hardly face any action as they bribe Tk 200-500 depending on the load capacity of truck each time.
Mohammad Hossain, in-charge of Load Control Station in Manikganj, brushed aside the allegation.
The highway police posted at 24 stations and 48 outposts across the country have only 76 vehicles including cars, jeeps and pickup vans for patrolling, 40 walkie-talkies and 151 motorcycles to discharge their duties.
But the department has yet to receive a wrecker for towing vehicles from the highways.
On average, each highway police station or outpost has a 160-km-long stretch of road to look after with only 15 to 20 personnel.
A highway police station or an outpost can afford only one patrol team with a car, which has to keep vigil from one end to the other, leaving behind a vast stretch of road unguarded.
Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Mohammad Sohrab Hossain told The Daily Star the standard jurisdiction for a highways police station is 60km, but many such stations or outposts have around 160km-long stretch to manage.
Besides, those stations and outposts badly suffer from personnel and logistics crises, he added.
Asked about monitoring of speed by BRTA, Director Tapan said they used speed governor seals on diesel-run vehicles, but drivers damaged those.
He added most of the diesel-run long-distance buses and trucks run by night and they can hardly take any action through conducting mobile courts.
