Highway safety takes a dip

A number of people are being killed and maimed almost every day in road accidents both in the cities as well as in the highways across Bangladesh. As a shocking testimony to that, 13 people were killed and 44 were grievously injured all over the country last Sunday alone. 

According to Road Safety Cell of the BRTA, the fatality rate in road accidents in the country is 85.6 per 10,000 vehicles in contrast to below 3 per 10,000 vehicles in developed countries. There is no denying that the police and vehicle operators have a fair share of blame in the ever deteriorating road safety scenario. There has been a dereliction of duty on the part of law enforcers who, allegedly in connivance with vehicle owners, turn a blind eye to unfit vehicles and under aged, unskilled drivers. We have an apology for a highway police force that lacks the logistics and hardware to track and punish offending drivers. 

There are other factors that contribute to the safety crisis, which include lack of separation of lanes between motorised and non-motorised vehicles, faulty road-design, and risky roadside activities including makeshift bazaars. To make matters even more grievous, laws regulating vehicle control has not been updated in the last 32 years. This has fostered the culture of impunity that has made the roads even more unsafe for travellers and pedestrians. 

We believe that unless laws governing traffic go through an overhaul and the police and the BRTA make a serious supervised effort to keep unfit vehicles and unworthy drivers off the roads, people will continue to lose lives.