Plea to make drivers conscious about safety of passengers

An emergency meeting with road transport workers' unions and owners' associations ended on Tuesday with the road transport minister's call to stop plying illegal and unfit vehicles and make drivers conscious about passengers safety.
Instead of talking about the role of transport sector leaders following death of people in road accidents in recent days, leaders who attended the meeting, however, pleaded the Road Transport and Bridge Minister for providing facilities including city bus terminals.
During the hour-long meeting they also tried to shift the responsibility of road mishaps to law enforcing agencies and Dhaka City Corporation as they have failed to check the tendency of jaywalkers to cross roads and attitude of the drivers to drop and pick passengers every now and then.  
The Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) called the emergency opinion exchange meeting with the stakeholders following the death of renowned journalist Zaglul Ahmed Chowdhury and some other deaths in recent road accidents. Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader attended the meeting. BRTA Chairman Nazrul Islam was also present.
During the meeting, the minister highlighted the achievement of the BRTA's drives against unfit vehicles but called upon the owners associations' leaders to advise drivers to check reckless driving and pay attention to the road safety.
"Road accident is now a matter of concern, matter of anxiety. The government has the responsibility to save the nation from this curse but you (transport leaders) cannot skip your duty," he said.
Rustom Ali, general secretary of Bangladesh Truck Covered Van Owner Association, demanded setting up standard in fixing body of different vehicles as per design as the BRTA has stopped renewing registration of thousands of covered vans.
The Dhaka District Workers Union General Secretary demanded a city bus terminal at Fulbaria as the drivers do not get any place to park buses, or even cannot get any toilet. He also called for giving more licences to drivers as their demand is still high in the country compared to the number of motorised vehicles getting registration.
President of Dhaka District Owners Association Abul Kalam, however, demanded extension of the deadline for paying road tax without fine which has been due for long and called upon the BRTA to sit with them for giving fitness certificates to more than 80,000 buses and trucks which remain suspended.
Mohammad Faruk Talukder Sohel, owner of Sohag Paribahan Private Limited, however, called for bringing discipline in the transport sector by the law enforcing agencies and said only political will can restore footpaths which have been occupied on the pretext of employing poor people. He also said the death of Zaglul Ahmed Chowdhury could be averted if the door lock system was introduced in all buses preventing passengers from boarding or disembarking from a bus.
He also called for increasing the road capacity of the national highways including Dhaka-Chittagong to accommodate traffic volume and set up speed breakers and road dividers as unplanned erection of these structures often cause accidents.
The meeting also brought the issue of removing roadside hats and bazaars. The minister then asked the BRTA and the owners and workers to sit together and to set guidelines about what to do and said issues like eviction from footpaths and markets from roadside will be discussed with the Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority and an inter-ministerial meeting will be called to discuss the issues in which other ministries are also involved.
Decisions to remove hats and bazaars from roadsides particularly along the national highways and freeing footpaths were taken on different occasions including during the meeting of the cabinet committee on road transport in presence of about seven to eight ministers in 2013 and 2014.
The leaders who attended Tuesday's meeting included General Secretary, Dhaka Zila Sarak Paribahan Samity Ismail Hossain Bachchu, President of Saidabad Terminal Malik Samity Abul Kalam and Dhaka Sarak Paribahan Samity Treasurer Abul Monsur Bulbul.
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