‘Rampant abuse’ of wreckers on roads

Munima Sultana | Published: March 18, 2016 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Use of wreckers is allegedly abused by a section of traffic police taking advantage of inadequate parking facilities in the city with people facing untold miseries in traffic jam-prone roads everyday.
Witnesses said wrecker use is found mainly at crossings, in front of the city's shopping malls, educational institutions and hospitals where people's movement is high compared to other places amid inadequate parking facility.
There is also an allegation of lack of transparency in use of wreckers and imposing fines for illegal parking.
Traffic police, however, said wreckers are used when traffic jam is created due to wrong parking and drivers are not found nearby.
They said Tk 1200 is charged for small, Tk 1500 for medium and Tk 2000 big motorised vehicles like trucks and buses when cases are filed.
Victims said in most of the cases, they are charged soon after cars are parked along pavement although there is hardly any scope for proper parking there.
"I had sent my driver to a bank with one query. It was a matter of two minutes only and there was no traffic jam on the road at that time. But I had to pay police Tk 1200 as they (policemen) threatened me to take away my car through a wrecker", said Asif Ahmed, a retired official.
Though octogenarian Asif showed his helplessness to move without car for his sickness, Masud, a businessman, said in many cases, it is not possible to park cars in parking places due to inconvenience in using those.  
The FE correspondent also found that charging people with fines is rampant close to City Centre and Sadharan Bima Bhaban where two big parking buildings are located. Many cars are parked on nearby road to avoid time to take formal parking.
There is a lack of transparency in charging public for illegal parking.
" I had only 10 to 15 minutes' work in an office at Dilkhusha but keeping my car at the parking building and coming out of it would take more than half an hour," said another victim.
According to the DMP (traffic), per day 5,708 cases were filed in four zones from January to June last year. During the period, a total of 171,246 cases were filed charging them with Tk 67.54 million fines.
However, the data showed amounts of fines dropped in different months despite the fact that the number of cases increased on those months.
Some 9,848 cases were filed in January, followed by 9,971 in February, 8,852 in March and 13,441 cases in April. But data showed that Tk 13.99 million was collected as fines in January but the amount dropped to Tk 5.45 million in February, Tk 4.79 million in March and Tk 3.73 million in April.
Additional Commissioner of Traffic Khandaker Golam Faruk refuted the allegations and said wreckers are used only in an emergency situation to keep any road free from jams.
"There is no rule to tag wrecker with a vehicle when driver is there," he told the FE at his office.
He also denied the scope of pocketing money as a group of police remains on the spot. Though the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) has a policy to guide traffic police to use those and fine vehicles against illegal parking, the additional commissioner refused to share it with media.
The additional commissioner said they use wreckers with three objectives - first in case of wrong parking, second removal of car having technical problem in the middle of a road and freeing road when VVIP moves.
According to him, offices of Deputy Commissioner (traffic) of north, south, east and west zones operate wreckers in their respective jurisdiction and fine the law-breakers according to cases.
The money earned as fines are deposited to the police welfare fund.
He said fines are charged based on weight of vehicles to meet the cost of wrecker use. According to him, Tk 800 is charged for private car but Tk 2,500 for 10 tonne truck and so on.
However, there are conflicting informations about fines.
The DC traffic office (south) said the police department has only four to five wreckers but it uses nine private wreckers to carry out their jobs.
In recent days, they also use wheel lock instead of wrecker.
On an average, they charge 30 to 35 vehicles in the southern area covering Dhanmondi, Rampura, New Market, Motijheel and Shahbagh.
According to the DMP (traffic), 5,708 cases were filed in four zones daily from January to June last year. During the period, a total of 171,246 cases were filed and Tk 67.54 million fined.
    smunima@yahoo.com