Road accidents continue to take a heavy toll of human lives across the country as the government initiatives to improve traffic management appear to have ended in failure due to half-hearted or uncoordinated efforts.
A large number of people in the country are poor. The government has a special responsibility to improve their economic conditions. Different measures can be taken to raise their incomes.
One such measure can be training of unemployed youths as drivers by setting up driving schools in every district town and city and then running those schools properly.
The government can set up driving schools in 64 district towns.
The driving schools can produce a few thousand trained drivers from different regions of the country every year. Properly trained and skilled drivers can ensure safe transport movement and help reduce the number of fatal accidents now taking place on the country's roads and highways every day.
A large number of such skilled and trained drivers will also get the opportunity of going abroad with jobs and earning valuable foreign exchange for the country. They will then be able to raise the standards of living of their families.
Huge amounts of money are not required to set up and operate driving schools. Such a school can be equipped with two mini-buses, two trucks and two double-cabin pick-up vans initially.
The trainees will eventually become part of our skilled or semi-skilled workforce. Such workers can turn out to be assets for the country.
A consortium involving the traffic police, the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority, the Technical Education Board and the Bureau of Manpower, may be formed to set up and operate, at least, one driving school in each district town in Bangladesh.
The curricula of such a driving school should include (a) driving a vehicle, (b) learning traffic rules and regulations, (c) acquiring preliminary knowledge on automobile maintenance, (d) speaking in English and (e) analysing consequence of accident on personal, family and social lives of the victims.
The amount required to
establish 64 driving schools equipped with proper infrastructural facilities and vehicles in five years is not too big considering the number of annual fatal
accidents.
Besides, the amount of investment by the government for establishing and operating such schools can be fully recovered within a very short time.
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