The authorities have decided to strictly enforce from November 1 the safety rules on roads like fastening of seatbelts for drivers and passengers of all motorised vehicles to curb fatal road accidents, while buses, trucks, microbuses, three wheelers and human haulers still do not have seatbelts.
Officials at the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority said that all motorised vehicles would need to have seatbelts attached to them by October 31 and that mobile courts would operate across the country from November 1 to ensure the order was carried out.
The BRTA director, Tapan Kumar Sarkar, told New Age that the decision to enforce the rule strictly on the roads was taken at a meeting of the National Road Transport Advisory Council on September 21.
Chaired by communications minister Syed Abul Hossain, the meeting at the secretariat was attended, among others, by senior officials and the leaders of transport workers and owners.
The decision of the meeting was conveyed to transport workers’ organisations and their leaders had been asked to carry out massive campaigns to inform the workers, the BRTA official said.
The BRTA has also carried out media campaigns to make people aware of the decision, he said.
Transport owners would have 40 days for taking preparations before the drive begins on November 1. Cars would also need to have seatbelts attached to them by the deadline, he said.
Citizens’ forums have welcomed the decision but expressed doubts whether the initiative would be successful.
They said the authorities had earlier taken initiatives to strictly implement other traffic rules, but did not succeed.
Most car drivers and passengers in different areas of the country on Friday expressed their ignorance about the seatbelt rule.
Transport owners said it would be difficult to have seatbelts attached to their vehicles as the bodies of transports like buses, trucks and human haulers were mostly locally made and that there was no system to do so.
‘What can we do when
there is no seatbelt at all,’ asked a bus passenger.
A transport worker said he was not aware of the government’s decision to impose seatbelt rule.
‘What the standing passengers will do,’ wondered Dhaka City College student Montu Bhadra who travelled to his college by bus.
‘Human haulers have bench-like seats and there is no scope to have seatbelts attached to them,’ said another passenger.
He said if the government wanted car drivers and passengers to use seatbelts, they should be given a more time.
Nagarik Sanghati general secretary Sharifuzaman Sharif said the initiative was ‘good’ but expressed his doubt about the success of the planned mobile court drive, referring to the failure of a number of past campaigns against traffic rules violation.
He, however, said that the government should first make the people aware of the traffic rules as the rules were made for their wellbeing.
