Jaywalking on the streets

A picture published by The Daily Star on Thursday tells the all-too-familiar tale of jaywalking as reckless pedestrians cross the streets near a city intersection, apparently oblivious to the presence of a footbridge just a few steps away. The result is a mishmash of cars, public transports, and pedestrians all vying for space in what may seem like an attempt at street repurposing. In recent years, jaywalking—flouting road barriers and traffic regulations—has become a common practice in our cities. Worryingly, despite being a punishable offence and a safety risk, it doesn't seem to bother us anymore.   

Pedestrian safety is at the heart of any road management plan and there are rules in place meant to guard against illegal road crossing. These regulations are as much for a smooth traffic flow as for the safety of the pedestrians, who are expected to abide by them for their own protection. The importance of responsible street use cannot be stressed enough, especially when drives by the mobile courts of metropolitan police departments have failed to rein back jaywalking. Last July, a DMP mobile court fined 60 reckless pedestrians at the airport intersection in Uttara and similar drives have been conducted sporadically in other areas of Dhaka also, to little avail however. 

We think our urban planners and road authorities should seriously reconsider their strategy to tackle jaywalking. There should be more easily accessible and available mediums of pedestrian crossing, but the citizens also have a role to play here. They can't expect the traffic situation to improve without first learning to respect the traffic regulations themselves.