Sagar Biswas :Road accidents have increased in the recent days at an alarming rate. But the concerned authorities especially the Road Transport and Bridges Ministry are not paying minimum attention to the serious issue. In the latest incident, 33 people were killed and 50 others received injuries when two passenger carrying buses collided head on in the country’s northern locality Natore on Monday. It’s a common scenario in the neighbouring countries that the related ministers tender resignation after such deadly accidents shouldering all the responsibilities. But the Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader still not issued any statement taking the responsibility for the ‘mass killings on the road.’ Rather, he tried to shift the blame on the shoulders of poor drivers; those [drivers of both buses] were killed in the tragic Natore accident.”Primarily it is understood that drivers’ reckless attitude, not the road condition is responsible for the Natore accident,” Quader said in an instant reaction after visiting the accident spot on Tuesday.It is a big question why the minister made such comments when a high-powered investigating committee is engaged to unearth the reason behind the accident?Did the minister tried to avoid the fact that hundreds of people are hurt or killed each year on roads and highways due to poor road quality and conditions where Roads and Highways Department under his own ministry is fully responsible? If the drivers were responsible, than why he did not utter a single word against Shipping Minister Shahjahan Khan who controls the whole transport sector including the drivers as the chief boss of transport owners and workers’ union?Did the minister try to hide the fact that Bangladesh Road Transport Authority [BRTA], an organisation under his own ministry, is solely responsible for issuing license to the drivers — both skilled and unskilled –in exchange of bribe money?There are widespread allegations that the Highway Police also do not play their role to prevent the accidents. Instead they remain quite busy in earning extra bucks from the drivers without filing any case after the accidents. Besides, the accused drivers often get clearance from the court due to lack of evidence and shortcoming of the existing law. No driver is seen punished for the fatal accidents as the transport unions create heavy pressure on the government.According to Road Safety Cell [RSC] of BRTA: The main causes of road accidents are—overloaded or unroadworthy vehicles, lack of awareness of safe road use, poor traffic management and law enforcement and poor driver training. Besides, around 70 percent of country’s drivers have no legal driving licence. Although there is no accurate government data, the media reports said that the reckless driving on the roads and highways claimed at least 50 lives in different parts of the country in the recently passed Eid-ul Azha and Durga Puja holidays.A study by the Accident Research Centre [ARC] of BUET said that in general 10 persons are killed and 11 persons are injured in each day in road accidents. But during national festivals, the number of fatalities and injuries increases 1.5 and 8.0 times than non-festival period. These accidents claim on average 12,000 lives annually and leads to about 35,000 injuries. Specifying the some vital reasons behind the accidents, the BUET study said, “Vehicle-pedestrian collision is the main type of accident accounting for 38 percent of total accident claiming 27 percent deaths. Head-on [19 percent], overturning [19 percent] and rear end [13 percent] type of accidents is far less than vehicle-pedestrian collision but claim 28 percent, 15 percent and 13 percent deaths respectively.”The traffic officials of police department, however, blamed reckless driving, speeding and unstable or overloaded vehicles for increasing road accidents. Recently a seminar jointly organized by BRTA and BRAC said over 95 percent of all road accidents is caused by human errors and most of them are preventable. “An average driver makes one mistake in every two miles of driving and in every 500 miles one of these mistakes leads to a near collision. Once every 61,000 miles, one of these mistakes leads to a crash. The drivers’ mistakes are endemic,” it said.A World Bank study blamed high growth in urbanization in comparison with motorization as one of the factors leading to the higher number of road accidents. “Besides, only 40 percent of the main roads [National Highways] are in good state, which is another big reason for accident,” the WB study said. Concerned circle said it needs overhauling to the entire Transport and Bridges Ministry along with reshuffling of the dishonest officials, because only renaming of the Communication Ministry is not good enough to break down its old corrupt structure.
