In a brazen display of disregard for government orders, three-wheelers continue to hog the highways to the discomfiture of heavier vehicles. Not only that, in a picture carried by this newspaper yesterday, we see even a rickshaw vying for space with motorised vehicles on Dhaka-Mawa highway.  

The government had taken a timely decision to ban three-wheelers from the highways because those were one of the major causative factors of road accidents there. But what good is an order if that cannot be enforced?

Here the government will also have to rethink lumping together all types of three-wheelers. The types like Karimon and Nasimon should never be allowed on the highways because those are totally unauthorised contraptions devised with the help of shallow pumps, with neither a steady control device for speed nor inbuilt stability. We wonder why they were allowed to come on the streets at all in the first place. 

However, the genuine auto-rickshaws are quite another matter on which a lot of investment has been made by the owners. They, because of their limited speed which hamper faster vehicles, should also be seen off the highways. But we feel that it should be done gradually. Alternatives should be offered not only to the three-wheeler owners but also to those who use them in the rural areas. Because of lack of lateral road network, they have to perforce come on the highways to travel to the next village. 

Ground realities must be addressed before a decision is made by the government and should be enforced once made.