The government’s directives to ensure road safety seem to have fallen on deaf ears with traffic on highways becoming more chaotic and travel riskier across the country.
No initiatives have apparently been taken so far to carry out the order of the prime minister and the decisions of the cabinet committee on law and order on road safety to check accidents as fatal traffic accidents continue to take place on highways.
‘Overtaking, over-speed and overloading remain a common sight on highways which are the major reasons of road accidents. It is a tough task to strictly enforce traffic rules and discipline traffic,’ deputy inspector general (highway) of police Humayun Kabir told New Age on Monday.
He, however, said the highway police was trying its best to ensure road safety even with limited manpower and resources.
The DIG said the total workforce of the highway police was 2000 and all of them could not be deployed at a time. ‘The ground reality is different. We cannot totally stop the trucks from carrying passengers taking into account some other factors, including humanitarian ones,’ he said.
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina at the cabinet meeting on Sunday once again ordered that effective measures be taken to prevent fatal road accidents following the death of internationally acclaimed film director Tareque Masud, ATN News chief executive officer Ashfaque Munier and three others in a road accident.
A microbus carrying them on Saturday collided head-on with a bus on the Dhaka-Aricha Road at Ghior in Manikganj, killing five persons on the spot and injuring three others.
According to government statistics, over 3,000 people are killed in traffic accidents a year, but the actual figure is believed to be much higher.
An inter-ministerial meeting to curb traffic accidents and maintain law and order on highways on August 10, 2011 once again directed the law enforcement agencies and local administrations not to allow unauthorised vehicles, including three-wheelers Nasimon/Karimon or easy-bike on highways.
The meeting directed the local authorities and police not to allow any markets or weekly bazaars along the highways. But no measures have been taken as yet to implement the decision originally taken one year back, said officials.
Home minister Sahara Khatun said on different occasions that the local administrations and police had been asked to strictly implement the decisions on road safety to protect life and property from accidents on the highways.
The cabinet committee on law and order at a meeting on July 13 issued directives for stopping use of mobile phones while driving against the backdrop of the deaths of 40, including 38 schoolboys, in a traffic accident at Mirersarai in Chittagong on July 11.
According to police and survivors, the driver of the ill-fated truck, which was carrying the schoolboys, was driving recklessly and talking over mobile when the tragic accident took place.
The home minister after the cabinet committee meeting said that the government was seriously thinking of launching mobile courts for strict enforcement of the Motor Vehicle Ordinance to restore discipline to the transport sector, with a special emphasis on checking the use of mobile phones by people while driving.
The cabinet committee also asked the law enforcement agencies to take steps to strictly enforce traffic rules.
After the incident at Mirersarai, the prime minister also ordered immediate steps to check such incidents.
At the 34th meeting of the advisory council of the national road transport at the secretariat on July 24, the government again ordered the law enforcement agencies to go tough on people found using mobile phones while driving.
Communications minister Syed Abul Hossain, who presided over the meeting, warned that the people using mobile while driving would be fined and their mobile sets would be seized.
He said that legal measures would be taken against the drivers of cars, jeeps and microbuses for not fastening seatbelts.
The minister also said directives were given to the authorities concerned for taking effective steps to ease traffic congestions in Dhaka and major business hubs elsewhere in the country in the month of Ramadan.
No steps have so far been taken to implement the decisions of the last meeting of the national advisory council for road transport on September 21, 2010 to ensure road safety, according to officials.
Shipping minister Shajahan Khan, who also attended the meeting, expressed concern over the inaction.
He criticised the communications ministry for holding the advisory council meeting almost after one year while it was supposed to sit every three months.
The road safety measures that the council decided to implement included a ban on movement of non-motorised and unauthorised vehicles like ‘Nasimon/Karimon’ on highways and removal of illegal structures and road-side markets.
Shahjahan, labour leader-turned minister, asked for effective measures to rein in the highway police personnel who were taking bribes from drivers. ‘There are allegations that drivers face difficulties on highways because of extortion by police, who file cases against them on refusal.’
About the drives against unauthorised vehicles, the DIG (highway) said that a coordinated move involving local government and BRTA would be taken to stop three-wheelers from plying the highways.
Courtesy of New Age
