Zakir Hossain Chowdhury :
Every day 18 people killed on average in road accidents in 2020, according report by Bangladesh Passengers Welfare Association’s (BPWA) annual road accident monitoring report for 2020. The report also said, 6,686 people lost their lives, and 8,600 were injured in a total of 4,891 road accidents in this period.
Lutu Mia, 52, was a truck driver who faced an accident on the highway 5 years ago. He lost his leg and is now begging on the street to bear his family expenses.
“As I lost my leg, I am not able to drive again; now I am taking help from relatives and sometimes begging on the street in town to bear my two child and wife’s expenses.”
Abdul Mannan, 43, going to the office by motorbike in the early morning in Dhaka, a bus came from the opposite direction and pushed him, he was injured along with the bike driver.
According to the World Health Organisation, approximately 1.3 million people’s lives are cut short due to a road accident 20 to 50 million people suffer injury.
This report also says, in low and middle-income countries, 93% of the world’s fatalities on the roads occur, although approximately 60% of the world’s vehicles these countries have.
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina gives several directives to concerned authorities, which cover a constraint on drivers plying their vehicles on the roadways to five hours at a reach to prevent road accidents in the country in 2018.
In 2019, at least 7,855 people were killed and 13,330 others injured in 5,516 road crashes across the country last year, says Passenger Welfare Association of Bangladesh.
Accident Research Institute (ARI) of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) reported 56,987 people were killed in 58,208 road accidents across Bangladesh during the last two decades.
ARI also added drivers are, directly or indirectly, responsible for 90% of road accidents and 43% of the total road accidents that occur on national highways. This is because of driving without a driver’s license, careless and faulty driving, and the plying of motorcycles and three-wheelers on routes.
In a statement, in Bangladesh, the Motor Vehicle Ordinance Act-1983 made third-party risk insurance compulsory for motor vehicles; District and Sessions Judge’s Court was assigned as the claim tribunal to ensure compensation for victims. There have been no instances of people receiving compensation through this act till now. The insurance companies took regular premiums but didn’t pay proper balance, the statement added. They also said that as the government did not take any action against them, poor people injured in road accidents had begun begging.
Rafiqul Islam, 47, who drives a bus on the highway, said, “I have driven through the highways hundreds of times, feeling irritated every time I overtook a slow vehicle like three-wheelers, tom-tom (small vehicle), auto-rickshaw. Without any training experience to drive them on the highway, they compete, crossing the road in a dangerous position. As we run the bus at 80km speed, it is very hard to break immediately, and that’s why we suffer a lot”.
A police report says in the first seven months of this year, 3,095 people were killed in 3,259 roads accident which is over 40 per cent more unusual than that of the same period last year.
Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) Chairman Nur Mohammad Mazumder said to a national daily blaming blindfold driving of small vehicles on street amid Covid-induced respite of buses and minibuses are reason behind the rise in accidents.
He also added, “We are doing our work and giving necessary directives to the stakeholders concerned to curb accidents.”
