Bikers continue to defy DMP ban

Motorcyclists in thousands plough through the city streets daily, violating traffic rules frequently much to the horrors of the pedestrians and inconvenience to the movement of vehicular traffic. The Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) imposed ban on riding motorbikes in footpaths early last year. But the bikers are often found using footpaths and roadside spaces during gridlocks. As a result the DMP ban is obeyed more in violation than compliance.
Traffic policemen struggling to manage tailbacks look helplessly as the bikers move through the footpaths in lightning speed, sending shivers down the spine of road users.  Most of the young reckless daredevil motorcyclists who use footpaths to avoid tailbacks endanger safety of the pedestrians. These young people are those bunch of bikers who care less for the safety of others as well as themselves.
Moreover, a rider without helmet often carries two persons on his back in utter violation of DMP rule. It is not also rare that a person on the back is a woman, sometimes found clinching one or two of her children. According to DMP rule, a rider can carry one person in his motorcycle but the accompanying man or women must also wear helmet. But the rule is never followed.
Last year the traffic authority had arranged sale of helmets to the bikers at different points in the city. The traffic men with stocks of helmets kept watch on the passing motorcycles and halted the bare-headed riders and pursued them to buy one. But how many helmets were sold in a day could not be known. If a motorcycle rider could not pay for a helmet on the spot for want of money he was, however, allowed to go for the time being.
Actually the authority could ensure wearing of helmets if it was made mandatory for the dealers not to sell motorcycles without helmets.
Now comes the question of speed control of the motorcycles. No rule seems to work here nor a traffic man can enforce it. The way a motorcycle, invariably at top speed, sneaks through the speeding vehicles and proceeds like a hurricane is simply frightening. The exact number of motorcycles plying in city roads is not known. An unofficial estimate, however, puts the figure at 0.8 million.
Now turning to the city's overall traffic management, the road users to their dismay, find that with each passing day tailbacks in Dhaka city is going from bad to worse as measures so far taken by the authorities concerned are quite inadequate to overcome the crisis. The people are accustomed to hear about application of newer methods to resolve the nagging problem which is taking a heavy toll not only on citizens' free movement, but also causing colossal loss in terms of working hours and hampering all other commercial activities.
The number one problem relating to traffic jam, however, lies in plying of vehicles nearly five times higher than the capacity of roads in the metropolis. According to a dependable estimate, the city roads are capable to bear the pressure of 0.15 million automobiles. The Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) has issued licences to about 0.75 million automobiles. In addition, nearly 0.2 million vehicles from outside ply city roads every day. This is another reason for traffic mess.
As we mentioned earlier in this column that several other major causes of acute tailbacks, such as wayside parking of vehicles at busy points, reckless driving and frequent violation of traffic rules remain unresolved. The traffic authority always blames lack of manpower and logistics for dealing with city's gridlock.
But it is common knowledge that one or two simple steps may improve the situation dramatically which does not require additional manpower nor elaborate logistics - but a strong will. Wayside parking is one such problem that can be tackled quite easily. Long queues of automobiles are always found parked beside the thoroughfares in peak hours causing intolerable traffic jam.  
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