Reza Mahmud :
Anarchy in transport sector in the capital continues despite calls to improve the situation. The drivers ignore traffic rules most of the time. As a result the traffic gridlock and accidents have not halted.
“Drivers of buses and other vehicles do not abide by the traffic rules at all. After the road safety movement in 2018 in the capital city, everyone hoped to get rid of anarchies in the transport sector. But that is yet to fulfill,” Mozammel Hoque Chowdhury, General Secretary of Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity told The New Nation.
He said, the four lives including a baby girl were killed in road accidents in the city on Tuesday proving that anarchies continue. He said, if the administration acts appropriately to implement the traffic rules, the discipline will return in the sector quickly. Sources said, the main reasons of the disarray in the transport sector are motor workers ignorance about traffic rules and lack of police actions against the violators of traffic rules.
Experts said that two City Corporations of the capital city had built 130 modern bus stoppages to eliminate traffic gridlock and accidents. The public buses have been directed to load and unload passengers at the stipulated stoppages. But the drivers mostly ignore the calls for stopping buses in busy streets to load and unload passengers, causing gridlock and accidents in the capital city.
Mozammel Hoque Chowdhury said, the bus drivers used to stop buses on the main roads and the intersections of the city. As a result, it causes gridlock.
He said, “As the drivers used to load and unload passengers on the main roads, they make the passengers compel to get in and out from the bus in running condition. It may cause accidents every moment in every bus in the city. The passengers more or less are injured, but many of those reports are missed by media.”
On July 29, 2018 young students from schools and colleges in the city took the streets demanding a safe road, after the death of two college students in the city’s Airport Road.
Government agencies then said that the movement of children had opened their eyes. To eliminate anarchies and irregularities on the roads, the government took various initiatives and gave many promises. But the accident did not stop.
The government has formed a 10 members coordination committee in September 2018 to bring discipline in the transport sector.
Dhaka South City Corporation Mayor Sayeed Khokon has been made its convener.
The committee has been directed to bring all buses under six companies. It has started work to build some bus depots to keep buses their after unloading passengers.
The Mayor of Dhaka North City Corporation has been made the joint convener of the committee.
