OVER a year after it was enacted, the Road Transport Act-2018 will be enforced from November 1. In the last one year, officials of the Road Transport and Bridges Ministry said the government had not been able to enforce the law because its rules were not framed yet. The officials still do not have the rules, but are going to enforce the law anyway. The Parliament passed the act in September, aiming to bring discipline on the roads, but it had not issued a gazette putting the law into effect. The Road Transport and Highway Division last Tuesday issued the gazette stating that the law would be enforced from next month.
Essentially the Road Transport Act is the result of an ongoing tug of war between the transport sector and the rest of the nation. It was enacted due to the deaths of two students last year who were killed due to violent and abrasive driving by bus drivers. Suspects in road accident cases usually go scot free without witnesses, faulty probe reports, and negligence of police.
Very recently, we witnessed that transport workers in Chattogram all of a sudden suspended movement of passenger-carrying transports protesting arrests two of their colleagues involved in an accident. It’s clear that the transport workers as an organised group often try to blackmail the administration to avoid legal action. The governments which suffers lack of popularity fear such an oragnised group and do not hesitate to meet their demands even if those are unlawful or unethical. That had happened thirty-four years ago. At that time, the maximum punishment for causing death by reckless and negligent driving was a jail term of seven years. But in the face of truckers’ protests in 1985, the Ershad government reduced the term of imprisonment to three years by amending the Penal Code.
Meanwhile, different transport organisations have been demanding amendments to several sections of the law including making all offences under the law “bailable”. But to make offence bailable means there is no guarantee that the compulsion of law will have enforceability. The fact is abuse of law is the law. Under this government, there is no assurance that the transport act will be enforced properly. If so, the enactment of the law will be totally meaningless. The authority has no competence or ability to apply any time-befitting or pro-people law.
There have been reports that the government was going to amend the law, being pressured by the transport leaders. We will have to wait to see whether the law is amended or not. However harsh laws make corruption easier. We must ensure public accountability of the government to have a government of law. We have dismally failed to do so.
Essentially the Road Transport Act is the result of an ongoing tug of war between the transport sector and the rest of the nation. It was enacted due to the deaths of two students last year who were killed due to violent and abrasive driving by bus drivers. Suspects in road accident cases usually go scot free without witnesses, faulty probe reports, and negligence of police.
Very recently, we witnessed that transport workers in Chattogram all of a sudden suspended movement of passenger-carrying transports protesting arrests two of their colleagues involved in an accident. It’s clear that the transport workers as an organised group often try to blackmail the administration to avoid legal action. The governments which suffers lack of popularity fear such an oragnised group and do not hesitate to meet their demands even if those are unlawful or unethical. That had happened thirty-four years ago. At that time, the maximum punishment for causing death by reckless and negligent driving was a jail term of seven years. But in the face of truckers’ protests in 1985, the Ershad government reduced the term of imprisonment to three years by amending the Penal Code.
Meanwhile, different transport organisations have been demanding amendments to several sections of the law including making all offences under the law “bailable”. But to make offence bailable means there is no guarantee that the compulsion of law will have enforceability. The fact is abuse of law is the law. Under this government, there is no assurance that the transport act will be enforced properly. If so, the enactment of the law will be totally meaningless. The authority has no competence or ability to apply any time-befitting or pro-people law.
There have been reports that the government was going to amend the law, being pressured by the transport leaders. We will have to wait to see whether the law is amended or not. However harsh laws make corruption easier. We must ensure public accountability of the government to have a government of law. We have dismally failed to do so.
