Speed breakers in the city

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HARDLY a day passes when someone does not say or write something about the problem of city traffic and the congestion on the roads.
When a problem comes up, naturally its solution is also discussed. Some people are canvassing for elevated expressway, some others are advocating underground metro rails and yet others are for rapid transit system. All these appear to be very attractive and are being tried with some success elsewhere. But all the projects under such solutions are very costly and we will be dependent on the advanced countries and donor agencies for fund and materials. Implementation of these projects, therefore, would first of all bring monetary benefits to the advanced countries which alone can supply the necessary equipment and materials to complete those projects. And it would not be impossible to find that the advocates of such solutions have some sort of connections with the advanced countries.
But one thing that the experts and policy planners or even the familiar faces representing the civil society have never said but which has a bearing on the problem of city traffic is the erection of innumerable speed breakers on the roads and even lanes and bye-lanes all over the city.
People use a motorised vehicle for its speed to reach the destination quickly. A speed breaker or a series of speed breakers surely put impediments to the speed of the vehicles. This of course leads to traffic congestion. The humble author of this letter has not seen any such speed breaker on city roads anywhere in the world -- say in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto in Japan, Beijing, Sanghai, Nanking, Guangzho (Canton) and Hong Kong in China, Bangkok in Thailand, Manila in the Philippines, Calcutta, Delhi, Lucknow and Agra in India, Moscow, Tashket, and Leningrad in the former Soviet Union and New York in the United States.
However, there might be some such structures built on private roads leading to sensitive installations. But that is another matter.
Speed breakers first came into being in Dhaka when a student was killed by a speeding vehicle in front of the Bangla Academy and then another in front of the Institute of Fine Arts. The practice caught on rapidly.
There is, however, no record to show that any attempt had been made to ascertain who was guilty for such an accident. It was and still is presumed that the driver of the vehicle must be the guilty party and the pedestrian, be he a student or not, is the victim. But this is not a juridically correct procedure.
Moreover, if one particular driver is guilty, why punish all the drivers and the public using motorised vehicles to move in the city by erecting a speed breaker whenever an accident occurs and a person dies?
Nobody, not even the highest court, has the right to punish the innocent.

Haridas Pal
Mirpur, Dhaka.