A committee formed with three ministers to look into how the Road Transport Act-2018 could be implemented, is going to propose changes to the Act. Part of the law came into effect partially in November last year. The committee, led by Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, finalised the proposals at its last meeting at the Home Ministry yesterday.
Most of the changes proposed would recommend reducing the fines for traffic violations, said multiple participants of the meeting. The associations of transport owners and workers have long been lobbying for changes to the Act.
The Railways Minister said the government had several meetings with the stakeholders — but the association of transport owners and workers are not the sole stakeholders of the law. Pedestrians, ordinary citizens, in fact anyone who walks the roads can be called a stakeholder.
The Jatiya Sangsad passed the Act in September 2018 following an unprecedented student movement for road safety. Students took to the streets across the country after two college students were killed by a bus on Airport Road in the capital on July 29 that year. So they are also stakeholders — because they represent the future of the nation. But they weren’t consulted because they, like pedestrians and others, are not part of an organised group.
The government then decided not to put in effect several sections of the Act. For instance, the government decided not to penalise those who drive large vehicles with licences meant for light or medium vehicles until June this year. The deadline was extended for another year. It also waived until December this year the fines for not renewing the driver’s licences and vehicles’ fitness documents on time. It also decided not to penalise illegal parking and modified vehicles.
But these changes would make it more dangerous for pedestrians to use roads as they would make it easier for untrained drivers to wreak the usual havoc that they do. So essentially the government is not penalising those who aren’t actually trained to run the vehicles that they are supposed to. How can it then say that the welfare of the people is foremost on their minds?
If the safety and security of the people’s lives were foremost in the mind of the government then these rules would not be changed or kept from being enacted. This abeyance will only encourage the hot rodders to ply the roads at their whim and end up taking an even greater loss of lives. So all sides have to be honest which is too much to expect in the existing situation.
