City roads are not highways. So, traffic rules do not allow the motor vehicles to ply the city roads at speed levels that are permissible in the case of highways.
People at the steering can hardly drive their motor vehicles at allowable top speed on most Dhaka roads because of the nagging traffic congestion from dawn to midnight. During the peak hours vehicles on Dhaka streets are forced to crawl to reach their destinations.
However, one wide road between Kakoli intersection and the airport traffic roundabout, on occasions, offer some freehand to the vehicle drivers. The driver of a bus belonging to one transport operator, owned by a top leader of the bus owners' association who has reportedly strong political connections, last Sunday afternoon took the liberty of driving his vehicle at speed well beyond allowable limit leading to the loss of three innocent lives near Khilkhet. The victims were travelling by a private car.
The operator's bus coming from Mymensingh hit the private car hard from behind. Failing to withstand the impact, the car crashed into another bus plying in front of it. The extent of damage caused to the car tells how severe the impact was. It is very much comparable with highway accidents of severe nature.
The victims of the car crash included a septuagenarian gentleman, Delwar Hossain Majumder, his 50-year old sister and her 22-year old daughter. Mr. Majumder was coming from his Gazipur residence to visit a doctor in Dhaka.
A newspaper quoting the office-in-charge of Khilkhet police station said the relatives of the victims were unwilling to file a case against anyone involved in the accident.
Under the prevailing circumstances in the transport sector, that was a prudent move on the part of the relatives of the victims of Khilkhet car crash, for they knew that the outcome of any sort of litigation would be zero. None would be punished ultimately for the relevant law is very lenient towards the offenders. Rather they would be wasting their time and money by attending the hearing of the case in question.
But should the state allow anyone, be he or she a bus driver or a bus owner, to break the traffic rules and take innocent lives on the streets? Unfortunately, the vehicle drivers have been given licence to kill on roads and highways.
Accidents do take place on highways and roads all over the world. But nowhere, possibly, the bus and truck drivers have been given so much of freedom to flout traffic rules, take human lives and enforce anarchy on the streets.
The death on city roads or highways in accidents has become more of a routine affair and it does not leave any impact on the minds of the people responsible for ensuring the safety and security of the road users, including passengers and pedestrians. Rather a section of policymakers and uniformed men tend to be protectors of errant bus and truck drivers.
Given the situation now prevailing in the transport sector, one has ample reasons to believe that there is none to restrain the transport workers and owners. The entire traffic management affair, it seems, is totally dependent on the sweet will of the all-powerful leaders of transport workers and bus and truck owners.
The pitiable state of affairs in the transport sector is very evident in the operation of the buses on different city routes. There was a time when buses did not pick or drop passengers barring the designated stoppages. And buses used to stop by the roadside stoppages to facilitate the passengers' safe embarkation or disembarkation.
But, presently, there are no designated bus stoppages in the city. One can get on or get down from a bus at any place. Passengers are picked and dropped even from the middle of the roads. The errant bus drivers have also encouraged the passengers to become flouters of traffic rules.
The police responsible for enforcement of traffic rules do not bother to discipline the bus and truck drivers. Their indifference towards flagrant violations of traffic rules, by the bus drivers and owners in particular, has been partly because of the muscle-flexing power of the latter and partly due to the pecuniary benefits they get from a defiant transport sector. The transport sector has always been a 'golden goose' for them.
It pains citizens when they see the police checking the documents of two wheelers, private cars, small covered vans and pick-ups every now and then, overlooking the plying of hundreds of unfit and dilapidated buses, human haulers etc., in the city.
It is hard to expect any change in the situation anytime soon for volumes have been said and written about the anarchic situation in the transport sector. However, the state of affairs in the transport sector is very relevant to the quality of governance in the country. So, one has to keep one's finger crossed for qualitative improvement in governance to see better results in the transport sector also.
© 2024 - All Rights with The Financial Express
