Speakers at a programme said on Saturday proper training to drivers, replacing slow-moving vehicles with medium-sized multi-purpose ones and strict traffic monitoring can help reduce deaths on highways.
They also suggested providing easy term loans to owners to replace their slow-moving and dilapidated vehicles with the ones with improved safety measures.
The suggestions came at a roundtable titled 'Alternative to Local Public Transportation: Road Safety and Rural Economy' organised by Road Safety Foundation (RSF) at the Press Institute of Bangladesh (PIB) in the city's Kakrail area.
RSF vice-president Abdul Hamid Sharif presented the concept paper at the programme while former director of Accident Research Institute (ARI) under Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) Professor Dr Moazzem Hossain, and former member director (economics) of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) Professor Dr Jahangir Alam Khan discussed different aspects of road safety in rural Bangladesh.
Mentioning transportation as the key component of economic development, Moazzem Hossain said the transportation system in the big cities of the country is unplanned, so the situation in rural areas can easily be imagined.
Despite Bangladesh being a land of rivers and water-bodies for thousands of years, policymakers concentrated only on developing road and rail network since British period denying natural mode of communications, he said.
He also said the government spent around 85 per cent of its transportation budget on road construction and repair while 5.0 to 6.0 per cent is allocated to waterways and the rest to railway, he informed.
Putting forward suggestion to decrease pressure on highways, the BUET professor said wholesale markets should be set up near rivers, big canals or rail route for the sake of transporting goods at low cost.
Mr Moazzem also said forming cooperative societies in every village, the government can provide vehicles to the farmers for transporting their goods at low cost breaking the nexus of middlemen.
To reduce chaos in roads at grassroots level, he recommended framing 'upazila transportation planning' tagging with a proper network planning.
In a presentation, Mr Sharif said scrapping slow-moving 'Nasimon-Karimon', battery-run easy bikes, and three wheelers from national highways with cost-effective mini and medium- sized multi-purpose vehicles can reduce accident on rural streets.
The drivers of locally-developed vehicles should be provided with required training so that they can drive other vehicles with improved safety.
He also said loans should be made available to the owners of slow-moving vehicles so that they can buy new ones.
Stating that owners operate low-cost vehicles like Nasimon-Karimon in rural areas due to poor quality of roads and affordability of commuters, Jahangir Alam said village people seek cost-effective solutions for their day to day life.
People in the country, because of their financial constraints, try to make maximum output of investments, he said.
"For instance, rural communities use shallow machine for four purposes - irrigation, boating, husking paddy and operating vans to transport agro produce," Dr Khan, also an agriculture economist added.
Mentioning water routes the main means of transportation in the country since ancient times, he said waterways throughout the country have to be revived to reduce pressure on road and rail routes.
International Business Forum of Bangladesh (IBFB) vice-president MS Siddiqui, RSF vice-president Barrister Jyotirmoy Barua also spoke on the occasion with RSF chairman professor Dr Mahbub Uddin Ahmed in the chair.
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