Road Transport Act: Compensating the accident victims

Hasnat M Alamgir | Published: June 03, 2023 20:10:48

The number of road traffic accidents and the resulting injuries and fatalities have been steadily on the rise in Bangladesh. It appears that all interventions put so forth including policies, programmes, regulatory enforcement, and educational campaigns to build awareness have not yielded any notable and visible progress in either reducing the incidents or the associated severity. No primary (e.g., wearing seatbelts, fitness tests) or secondary (e.g., roadside trauma center) nor tertiary prevention (e.g., rehabilitation of the injured victims) measures have shown any impact on curbing the frequency or associated human and socio-economic losses. From school children, working-age adults to the elderly -all have been falling victims across the country as newspapers everyday report on traffic accidents.
Countless media reports and personal anecdotes have not been able to bring the attention of the regulators and political establishment to address this issue. Several civil society organisations including NirapadSarak Chai, Bangladesh JatriKalyanSamity, as well as an academic research centre like Accident Research Institute at BUET, have been trying to build public opinion to draw the attention of the policymakers and regulators by providing data and evidence on the risk. They also have suggested possible interventions. As per the data from NirapadSarak Chai, 18,924 people lost their lives and 24,887 others were injured in as many as 15,690 road accidents in the years 2018 to 2021. This year, road crashes across the country claimed 5,057 lives till September said Road Safety Foundation. The data on accidents produced by them often vary because of their use of different sources and methods of collecting and compiling reports.
One major news on this front is that the Bangladesh government has finalised rules to implement the Road Transport Act (RTA) 2018 after four long years of its passing by parliament. Full implementation of the law remained on hold due to a lack of necessary rules during the last four years. Several sections of the law, including the one related to compensation could not be enforced in the absence of the rules. The Road Transport Act was passed by lawmakers following demonstrations for safer roads across the country in July and August of 2018. The law was not put into effect allegedly due to pressure coming from transport associations.
There are legal provisions of one-time financial assistance for road accident victims. People who will lose any vital body part and who will be severely injured without the chance of returning to normal life through treatment will get Tk 0.3 million; If someone dies on the spot or dies after suffering injuries, the dependents receive Tk 0.5 million; and people who will be severely injured with the chance of returning to normal life through treatment will get Tk 0.1 million.
These compensation claims will be settled by a 12-member trustee board and this board will be led by the BRTA chairman. The rules mention how much money a vehicle owner must pay to the compensation fund regulated and administered by the trustee board. This Board will be able to modify the amount in future upon government approval. While one may argue that such a board should have been led by an independent national figure with relevant expertise, experience, and credentials such as a retired professor of medical college, public health, transportation engineering, or economics, the ground reality of Bangladesh is that only a serving civil servant may have the right bureaucratic skills, authority, and connection to oblige all stakeholders and make the claim adjudication process functional.
There has been disappointment with the compensation amounts; these numbers set forth look too low given the extent of loss suffered by the accident victims or their families. Paying a family only Tk 0.5 million for a lost member who was likely the only provider of bread and butter for them appears to be next to nothing and the family in crisis will likely spend all of it in the first year after the death. If a 25-year-old individual is earning only about 20,000 Tk/month, he/she would have earned this amount in about two years in the entire working life; inflation and time value of money if considered would make this estimate even lower in real terms. It is not understood how the regulators came up with these figures; whether they consulted with experts including health economists who could use scientific methods that are used in other countries to calculate the losses suffered in similar situations and used in the courts of law or by compensation boards to adjudicate and decide compensation amounts.
The second but more important issue is to make it easier for the victims or their families to navigate through the process and actually receive the amount when they need it the most. There are numerous previous reports exposing the difficulties for people covered under various social safety net programmes to access their benefits in Bangladesh. People of old age, women, those with low literacy or income, no political connection, or with a disability must be able to receive their true amount on time-however low the amount appears.
However, if the transport owners are forced to contribute to creating this fund, that will create some accountability for them for the first time and this whole mechanism may convince them to take concrete measures on their part to improve traffic safety including not allowing vehicles without fitness to be on the roads, barring hiring drivers without a license and making their drivers and other transportation workers aware to follow traffic rules and regulations. Failure to make the transport owners liable for the accidents has been a major reason for the rise in the number of traffic accidents in Bangladesh.
Hasnat M Alamgir is a Professor and Head of Public Health at the State University of Bangladesh.
hasnat.md.alamgir@gmail.com