Ensuring Road Safety: Lowest outcome from highest committees
The government has three high-powered committees to ensure roads are safe. These committees meet infrequently, and when they meet, they make almost identical decisions. And those decisions rarely come to fruition.
To sum it up, these committees make little difference to the efforts to bring discipline in the road transport sector. And meanwhile, crashes continue to claim hundreds of lives and leave many others with life-changing injuries every month.
As is the case whenever major crashes happen, these committees seem to have woken up after 29 people died in two accidents last week.
Different government agencies have also intensified their drives against errant motorists and risky vehicles.
Road safety campaigner Ilias Kanchan said, "These committees make decisions. But there is no dedicated body to implement those or monitor how the decisions are implemented. As a result, most of the decisions collect dust while roads remain unsafe."
On Tuesday, a head-on collision between a bus and a pickup in Faridpur claimed 15 lives. Five of the victims were of a family. The bus had no route permit, fitness certificate and tax token, while the pickup carried people illegally.
On Wednesday, a truck ploughed through several vehicles in Jhalakathi, killing 14 and injuring 12 others. The man driving the truck did not have the licence required for heavy vehicles.
Road crashes and deaths saw a 60.28 percent and 40.33 percent rise in the first three months of this year compared to the same period last year, according to data from Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA).
"These committees make decisions. But there is no dedicated body to implement those or monitor how the decisions are implemented. As a result, most of the decisions collect dust while roads remain unsafe."
INACTIVE COMMITTEES
National Road Safety Council (NRSC) was formed in 1995. Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader is its chairman while several other ministers, including those of home and railways, top government and police officials and transport leaders are its members.
The council, a top policy making body on road safety, is supposed to sit every six months or as per the will of the chairman.
It held its last and 29th meeting on November 15, 2022, and decided that the authorities would "closely monitor" five national highways and keep illegal three-wheelers off of those.
Three-wheelers were banned on 22 major highways in August 2015. NRSC's 28th meeting held on February 18, 2021, decided that the authorities would register illegal three-wheelers in order to control them.
However, operation of such vehicles on highways is rampant and authority has not initiated a system to register them.
Three-wheelers are believed to be a major cause of crashes.
Contacted, BRTA Chairman Nur Mohammad Mazumder, also the member secretary of the council, said the road transport minister has ordered a meeting soon.
In February 2014, the government formed the Cabinet Committee on Road Safety with Quader as the convener of the seven-minister body.
The committee was supposed to take steps to remove markets and commercial establishments on or by national and regional highways and keep locally made illegal three-wheelers known as Nasimon and Karimon off the roads, reads the Cabinet Division circular from February 13, 2014.
Sixteen top government officials and police were supposed to assist the committee. The committee did not hold any meeting in the last few years, sources at road transport and bridges ministry said.
A high-powered taskforce led by Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal was formed in October 2019 to execute 111 recommendations made by a government-commissioned committee to reduce crashes and bring discipline on roads.
Secretaries of different ministries, top police officials, transport leaders, experts, and road safety campaigners were members of the committee.
The taskforce held its seventh and last meeting on May 17, 2023. It was decided that the taskforce would take an initiative to give appointment letters to the drivers, helpers and conductors of the commercial vehicles.
The taskforce had made the same decision at its second meeting in December 2020. The issue was discussed in the following three meetings as well. But the decision has not been implemented.
The taskforce, in its meetings, discussed and took decisions about stopping service charge outside of terminals. That decision also remains on paper.
The government in 1985 formed the Road Transport Advisory Council under Motor Vehicle Ordinance-1983. The council led by the road transport and bridges minister had top bureaucrats, police officials and transport leaders as members.
The council was abolished after the enforcement of Road Transport Act-2018 in November 2019, as the Ordinance was repealed then, Mahbub-E-Rabbani, director (road safety) BRTA told this correspondent.
The council in its last meeting in August 2018, decided to strictly enforce the ban on three-wheelers and other slow vehicles on highways.
Ilias Kanchan, a member of both the taskforce and NRSC, recommended establishing a management board dedicated to implementing the decisions.
The BRTA chairman, also a member of the taskforce, said the following meeting of the taskforce was postponed twice for different reasons.
DRIVES INTENSIFIED
Meanwhile, BRTA has written to local administration and police to intensify the drive against errant drivers and risky vehicles, its chairman told The Daily Star yesterday.
The agency on Wednesday ordered its offices across the country to contact the district administrations and organise mobile courts, he said.
"The mobile court drives will continue until further notice. The drive will continue even on weekends," he added.