Safe roads or wayside tree?
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
A road accident in Faridpur on the dawn of the New Year's Day claimed 18 lives and left many more wounded, all passengers of a bus. A number of dailies could not publish the news in the front pages. Resignation to fate, is what accidents, occurring almost everyday, prompts the helpless citizens to adopt. But unnatural deaths caused by road accidents cannot be accepted, for the sheer number of the unsuspecting victims is too high. A roadside tree can multiply the impact on a skidding vehicle.
The importance of roadside trees has to be weighed against safety of the travelling public. The right of the traveling public cannot be ignored either. Centuries ago roadside trees posed no problem as there were no fast moving vehicles. Roadside trees provided shade for the exhausted travelers to rest. Fast moving vehicles on today's roads are in perennial risk of collisions, that can wound or kill passengers. So, the perspectives of planting road side trees, then and now, have to be different. For the protection of the roads against wind and water, better soil compaction technology can replace the wayside trees.
KMN Sarwar Iqbal
Faculty, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, IUBAT, Dhaka.
kmnsiqbal@gmail.com)
The importance of roadside trees has to be weighed against safety of the travelling public. The right of the traveling public cannot be ignored either. Centuries ago roadside trees posed no problem as there were no fast moving vehicles. Roadside trees provided shade for the exhausted travelers to rest. Fast moving vehicles on today's roads are in perennial risk of collisions, that can wound or kill passengers. So, the perspectives of planting road side trees, then and now, have to be different. For the protection of the roads against wind and water, better soil compaction technology can replace the wayside trees.
KMN Sarwar Iqbal
Faculty, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, IUBAT, Dhaka.
kmnsiqbal@gmail.com)