By The Numbers
Spurt in road accidents
It has become a regular feature that when newspapers resume publication after each Eid vacation, their front pages are filled with gruesome pictures and reports on road accidents. This Eid vacation was not an exception. "Road accidents kill 41 during Eid holidays," was the heading of a front-page report in The Daily Star on December 24. A Bengali daily reported that road accidents claimed 62 lives and 264 were injured during the Eid vacation.
According to the Daily Star report, 41 people were killed and over 150 injured in separate road accidents in the capital and elsewhere in the country during the Eid holidays. At least 12 people were killed and 45 injured in two separate road accidents in Serajganj when a truck with around 70 passengers skidded off the road and another truck and a bus collided head-on.
Six people drowned and 15 other were injured as they slammed into the beam of a bridge and fell into the river from the roof of a train on December 20. According to the report, the roof was crowded with home-going passengers due to the Eid rush. As the train entered the bridge, at least 21 of them fell into the river after being hit by the metal beam.
Seven, including three women, were killed in the capital. Fatal accidents also occurred in Bogra, Dinajpur, Kurigram, Mymensingh, Jamalpur, Gopalganj, Sylhet and Chittagong.
Eid in Bangladesh comes every year with worsening statistics of road accidents. At least 44 people were killed and 150 were injured at different places in road accidents during the Eid-ul-Fitr holidays in October. A tragic road accident claimed 70 lives in Comilla after the last Eid-ul-Azha festival.
At least 13 people were killed and 34 injured in separate road accidents in different places including the city on December 24, and ten people were killed in three separate road accidents on December 26. All the accidents occurred when overloaded buses skidded off the road or collided head-on with another bus or truck. The train accident that killed six people was surely avoidable, if the passengers were not allowed to travel on the roof of the train.
Road accidents rise alarmingly every year during the Eid festivals, as there is heavy rush to go villages and to return to the capital. But there is no extra effort to make their journey safe. Festival-time slackness of the patrol police to check overloading and overtaking, reckless driving, and plying of unfit vehicles are the main causes of rising accidents.
But nothing ever gets done about the peril as we consider it to be something divinely designed. In fact, most of the accidents can very well be avoided if precautionary measures are taken by the concerned authorities during the festival time. Of course, the active cooperation of the road users is essential to reverse the process.
Unfit vehicles, inexperienced drivers, and rundown roads are three factors mostly responsible for all road accidents. Unfit vehicles are virtual death traps on the highways. Ironically, the vehicles that would not be allowed on the roads under normal circumstances are seen plying with impunity on the highways.
Rash driving is also a leading cause of accident. A Daily Star investigation report revealed that nearly half a million people are driving motor vehicles on roads across the country with fake licences. Drivers are known to get their licences very easily on the strength of bribe. On the other hand, inadequate highway patrolling has given the drivers a free hand.
Yes, there is a full-fledged department, the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA), to check and issue fitness certificates to all vehicles. We now have highway police. But plying of unfit vehicles and reckless driving of buses and trucks are still present. Traffic rules are violated all the way. Thanks to pervasive corruption, one is dissuaded from observing the rules.
What is now badly needed is strict enforcement of traffic laws on the highways, especially those relating to fitness of vehicles and fake driving licences. It is incumbent on the BRTA to perform its duty with utmost honesty and sincerity to ensure road safety. Its cooperation with the law enforcing agencies must also be enhanced.
Road accidents are rooted in slack laws and lack of vigilance by the government agencies. It is a truth that cannot really be denied. Under section 304-B of the Bangladesh Penal Code, a driver may be imprisoned for up to seven years for reckless driving that leads to a death. But almost no driver or vehicle owner has faced punishment for such accidents. An effective law is essential for promoting road safety.
Bangladesh is ranked as one of the most accident-prone countries in the world. The annual fatality rate from road accidents in Bangladesh is 85.6 per 10,000 vehicles, which is very poorly contrasted even with 47.7 in Myanmar and 62.7 in Nepal. In developed countries, the annual fatality rate is below three, though the number of motor vehicles is huge there.
The developed countries have evolved ways of reducing road accidents by applying modern technology. Technology has reached such a height that very little is left to risk. The application of risk reduction technology has reduced the number of causalities in all fields, including road accidents. Why don't we use the risk reduction technology?
Road accidents claim some 12,000 people annually in Bangladesh, which makes one thousand every month or more than 33 deaths daily. The economic cost of road accidents, as estimated by the Accident Research Centre of BUET, is Tk 50 billion that is nearly two percent of our GDP.
But such alarming figures have not yet been able to awaken the concerned authority to devise effective measures on a top priority basis for minimising road accidents and for casualty limitation. Ironically, most of these accidents represent callousness on the part of those whose duty it is to ensure safety of the passengers. Accidents will always be there. But let us not invite them through callousness and indifference.
Road accident is a very dangerous peril in our country. But the safety of the passengers on the roads is the most neglected public issue in Bangladesh. This issue has been neglected partly because the rich inflict on the poor in these events and partly because road accidents are always dismissed as unavoidable contingencies.
A. N. M. Nurul Haque is a columnist of The Daily Star.
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