Driving school can reduce accidents

An English daily reported on July 21 that as many as 92 people died in road crashes across the country during the last one week and 70 of them died during Eid holidays. The majority of the victims were passengers who were either going home for Eid or returning to workplaces after Eid. According to sources, most of the accidents took place in 23 districts and 30 people were killed in Sirajganj alone. The accidents can be attributed mainly to overloaded buses being driven by unskilled drivers. Human lives were lost in accidents as drivers without licences were driving unfit vehicles on roads and highways of the country.

The number of road accidents will decline significantly if we deploy properly trained drivers at the steering. The government has a special responsibility to improve the situation and make life easier for commuters. Setting up of driving schools in every district town and city and running them properly can be a way out.

Such schools can produce a few thousand trained drivers from different regions of the country every year. Properly trained and skilled drivers will ensure safer movement and help reduce the number of accidents. A large number of such skilled and trained drivers will also get the opportunity of going abroad with jobs and earn valuable foreign exchange for the  country. They will thus be able to raise the standard of living of their families.

A driving school can be organized with two mini-buses, two trucks and two double-cabin pick-up vans initially. The candidates passing out will eventually become part of our skilled or semi-skilled work force. Such work force is an asset for the country. A consortium involving the traffic police, the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority, the Technical Education Board and the Bureau of Manpower, can be set up to run at least one driving school in each district town in Bangladesh. The curricula of such a school should include:

(a) vehicle driving;

(b) traffic rules and regulations;

(c) primary knowledge of automobile maintenance;

(d) basic knowledge in English and

(e) Knowledge of consequences of accidents on  personal, family and social lives.

The amount required to establish 64 driving schools equipped with proper infrastructural facilities and vehicles within five years, is very small compared to the loss of life and property from fatal accidents. Besides, the investment by the government for establishing and operating such schools can be fully recovered within a very few years by remittances from the trained drivers who will get employment abroad.

Md Ashraf Hossain

120, Bashabo, Dhaka-1214.

mah120cb@yahoo.com