In addition to creating large-scale mass-awareness, strict enforcement of traffic rules has become an urgent need to reduce road accidents that claimed around 4,000 lives and injured scores every year in the country.
If the drivers drive their vehicles carefully the existing number of road traffic accidents could be reduced to a greater extent.
The observations came in a discussion- 2016 styled “Enhancement of Road Safety and Mass-awareness” held at Nanking Darbar Hall in Rajshahi yesterday. Rajshahi Circle of Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) organized the discussion in association with the district administration.
Commissioner of Rajshahi division Abdul Hannan and Divisional Director of Local Government Division Aminul Islam addressed the discussion as the chief and special guests respectively with Deputy Commissioner Kazi Ashraf Uddin in the chair.
Around 200 persons from government officials, human right activists, leaders of road transport workers and representatives of transport owners associations were present at the discussion. Superintendent of Police Nisharul Arif, Deputy Commissioner (Traffic) of RMP Tofayel Ahmed, Editor of Daily Sonali Sangbad Liakat Ali, BRTA Deputy Director Md Ashrafuzzaman and its Assistant Director Sadequl Islam also spoke.
The discussants mentioned that the driver alone isn’t always responsible for accident, various other reasons like frequent movement of the pedestrians are in many cases responsible.
They underlined the need for strict enforcement of laws together with collective efforts of all to reduce road accidents significantly in the country.
If the drivers, helpers, members of law enforcement agencies and pedestrians obey the traffic rules properly from their respected sides, many road accidents could be avoided.
Divisional Commissioner Abdul Hannan told the meeting that government has taken initiative to launch training institute in each district of the country to bring the drivers under training and refreshers training round the year.
Step has also been taken to incorporate the issue of road accident and its
causes and prevention in the course-curriculum besides other various
programmes to reduce the country’s road accidents by 50 percent within the
next 15 years, he added.
BRTA Deputy Director Ashrafuzzaman said the country experiences over 5,000
road accidents every year that claim over 4,000 lives and injure a huge
number of people.
The total loss of properties in the accidents is estimated to over Taka
5000 crore which is 2 percent of the country’s GDP.
Earlier, a colourful rally was brought out from the Luxmipur Crossing to
raise awareness among the people on road safety.
