Our lives at their hands
Saturday, 8 September 2007
Qazi Azad
AN event, tragic or bad, put in perspective, explains the causes of its occurrence. This step is important in identifying a workable corrective step or programmes to exclude the possibility of its recurrence. Otherwise, the mad chase after the wild black cat in the dark room for purpose of catching to cage it would be always endless.
We may think about the causes of untimely deaths and grievous injuries in road accidents. Why do such incidents occur so frequently in this densely populated country? Lately, such unwelcome incidents take place even oftener than previously heard of. Let's put one recent accident in perspective to find out the cause or causes behind it.
According to a report in several newspapers last Tuesday, an auto rickshaw with six persons on board was driven recklessly at 10.30 in the morning the previous day on the railway track at the Dogoria railway crossing under Nangolkot upazila of Comilla. An approaching Dhaka-bound train was then about 10 yards away from the spot. The running train rammed the three-wheeler killing four and injuring the rest two on board grievously.
Its enormous momentum restrains a running train from coming immediately to a halt on pressing its brake. It carries the train forward for several hundred yards until continuous friction of its wheels with the rails of the track has completely nullified that acquired force. Evidently, the driver of the auto rickshaw hurriedly brought forward the transport on the track as if to put it before the running train for being rammed. His purpose might not have been suicide and killing. It could be different -- to get away across the track to complete the journey to his destination as fast as possible. But the ultimate outcome of the desperate move, as its tragic result immediately exposed, was as bad as group suicide or killing.
Doubtless, learning how to drive a modern transport is a requirement of the driving profession. One may also acquire the skill to drive one's own transport. But that should not be enough for acquiring a license to master a transport. Congenital psychological aberrations in aspirant drivers are prospective threats to public security. Those who have already acquired their driving licences, having such invisible but cognizable defects, and are on the roads with modern transports, like cars, buses, trucks and auto rickshaws, are identifiable threats. The growing cult of drug or alcohol addiction as a luxury or as a route to relief from pains and frustration, which now reportedly afflicts many drivers, has magnified those threats.
A newspaper that reported the Nangolkot incident carried on the same day in the same page another report about two separate road accidents. In one of them, which occurred on the Meghna-Gomti Bridge on the Dhaka-Chittagong highway, two people were killed and three others were injured. The accident occurred when a Dhaka-bound passenger bus collided head-on with an approaching microbus. The nature of the accident reveals that at least one of the drivers of any of the two transports was guilty for it. It might be even so that both of them were equally guilty. In another accident, which took place in Natunhut area of Barisal, a minor girl was run over by a bus while she was crossing the road on her way to her maternal grand mother's house. The girl, who was to land affection on reaching her desired destination, unfortunately reached the most undesirable destination for her age.
A few days ago, a young girl of 18, who was traveling from Rangpur to Bogra in a microbus with a bridal party, was killed along with some others in a road accident on her way to her coveted destination. The unfortunate girl left this world before she herself became a bride. If her soul could talk with us from the unseen, perhaps it would talk about her dream that ended abruptly unfulfilled. It would complain about our continuing indifference to the manifest causes of major road accidents, like overtaking in a narrow space, psychological incompetence of drivers and too fast driving in crowded highways and roads.
Those of us who are on this side of life should feel intensely about those who have left this world for good due to road accidents with their bodies mutilated and souls discontent for not having the full run of life. Otherwise, we may never feel seriously obligated for taking some firm measures to forestall or at least reduce the frequency of road accidents in our country.
What does usually happen as a result of every major road accident? Many children become orphans and helpless, many minor children die out from this world with all their dreams unfulfilled, putting their aggrieved parents in perennial pains with a grave sense of loss of some of their issues. Many women lose husbands, brothers and sisters in road accidents and many men confront the discomforting reality of having lost their wives, brothers and sisters.
A humane assessment of the impact of every major road accident would alone generate in us a serious mental urge to take some practical measures to stop the physically, pathologically and mentally incompetent people from possessing driving licenses. The Nangolkot incident has once again stressed that proper medical test of individuals aspiring to have driving licenses should be conducted compulsorily and that only those found fully fit should receive the official authorization with legal documents for driving.
Punitive actions of any measure for traffic offences as deterrence would never be as effective in bringing down the rate of road accidents as handing down driving licenses to only those who are fully competent physically, pathologically and psychologically for driving. An apprehension like "Our lives in the hands of drivers" should not continue to haunt passengers of transports and the public in movement on the roads.
AN event, tragic or bad, put in perspective, explains the causes of its occurrence. This step is important in identifying a workable corrective step or programmes to exclude the possibility of its recurrence. Otherwise, the mad chase after the wild black cat in the dark room for purpose of catching to cage it would be always endless.
We may think about the causes of untimely deaths and grievous injuries in road accidents. Why do such incidents occur so frequently in this densely populated country? Lately, such unwelcome incidents take place even oftener than previously heard of. Let's put one recent accident in perspective to find out the cause or causes behind it.
According to a report in several newspapers last Tuesday, an auto rickshaw with six persons on board was driven recklessly at 10.30 in the morning the previous day on the railway track at the Dogoria railway crossing under Nangolkot upazila of Comilla. An approaching Dhaka-bound train was then about 10 yards away from the spot. The running train rammed the three-wheeler killing four and injuring the rest two on board grievously.
Its enormous momentum restrains a running train from coming immediately to a halt on pressing its brake. It carries the train forward for several hundred yards until continuous friction of its wheels with the rails of the track has completely nullified that acquired force. Evidently, the driver of the auto rickshaw hurriedly brought forward the transport on the track as if to put it before the running train for being rammed. His purpose might not have been suicide and killing. It could be different -- to get away across the track to complete the journey to his destination as fast as possible. But the ultimate outcome of the desperate move, as its tragic result immediately exposed, was as bad as group suicide or killing.
Doubtless, learning how to drive a modern transport is a requirement of the driving profession. One may also acquire the skill to drive one's own transport. But that should not be enough for acquiring a license to master a transport. Congenital psychological aberrations in aspirant drivers are prospective threats to public security. Those who have already acquired their driving licences, having such invisible but cognizable defects, and are on the roads with modern transports, like cars, buses, trucks and auto rickshaws, are identifiable threats. The growing cult of drug or alcohol addiction as a luxury or as a route to relief from pains and frustration, which now reportedly afflicts many drivers, has magnified those threats.
A newspaper that reported the Nangolkot incident carried on the same day in the same page another report about two separate road accidents. In one of them, which occurred on the Meghna-Gomti Bridge on the Dhaka-Chittagong highway, two people were killed and three others were injured. The accident occurred when a Dhaka-bound passenger bus collided head-on with an approaching microbus. The nature of the accident reveals that at least one of the drivers of any of the two transports was guilty for it. It might be even so that both of them were equally guilty. In another accident, which took place in Natunhut area of Barisal, a minor girl was run over by a bus while she was crossing the road on her way to her maternal grand mother's house. The girl, who was to land affection on reaching her desired destination, unfortunately reached the most undesirable destination for her age.
A few days ago, a young girl of 18, who was traveling from Rangpur to Bogra in a microbus with a bridal party, was killed along with some others in a road accident on her way to her coveted destination. The unfortunate girl left this world before she herself became a bride. If her soul could talk with us from the unseen, perhaps it would talk about her dream that ended abruptly unfulfilled. It would complain about our continuing indifference to the manifest causes of major road accidents, like overtaking in a narrow space, psychological incompetence of drivers and too fast driving in crowded highways and roads.
Those of us who are on this side of life should feel intensely about those who have left this world for good due to road accidents with their bodies mutilated and souls discontent for not having the full run of life. Otherwise, we may never feel seriously obligated for taking some firm measures to forestall or at least reduce the frequency of road accidents in our country.
What does usually happen as a result of every major road accident? Many children become orphans and helpless, many minor children die out from this world with all their dreams unfulfilled, putting their aggrieved parents in perennial pains with a grave sense of loss of some of their issues. Many women lose husbands, brothers and sisters in road accidents and many men confront the discomforting reality of having lost their wives, brothers and sisters.
A humane assessment of the impact of every major road accident would alone generate in us a serious mental urge to take some practical measures to stop the physically, pathologically and mentally incompetent people from possessing driving licenses. The Nangolkot incident has once again stressed that proper medical test of individuals aspiring to have driving licenses should be conducted compulsorily and that only those found fully fit should receive the official authorization with legal documents for driving.
Punitive actions of any measure for traffic offences as deterrence would never be as effective in bringing down the rate of road accidents as handing down driving licenses to only those who are fully competent physically, pathologically and psychologically for driving. An apprehension like "Our lives in the hands of drivers" should not continue to haunt passengers of transports and the public in movement on the roads.