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Accident: Chittagong
FROM PAGE 10
on the drivers of both the transports. One report says that there was not much of mist on the road at that night, and there was not much traffic either; so weather and road conditions could not have been contributory factors to the accident. Another report says that the tempo was speeding fast, and that the moment it approached the rather unwieldy culvert in front of Ibrahim Cotton Mills, the Ranger just dashed into it from the other end, and then resulted the carnage.
My hunch is that it is the tempo driver (unfortunately, he also got killed) who might have caused the accident. As the culvert rises to a curve from the road, the drivers of vehicles from both sides have obstructed vision forward. It is very likely that the drivers of both the vehicles did not sight each other's car until they were dangerously close. The tempo driver may be responsible here in this regard that his one was a hired transport, probably not one that ran regularly on Chittagong-Rangamati route. Of the two drivers he may have been the less familiar one with the condition of the road, and, therefore, to be held the more responsible one.
This very sorrowful and regrettable accident apart, the Chittagong-Rangamati Road has turned into an absolute nightmare for the automobile passengers on the road. From the port city this road goes straight to Hathazari via Sholashahar and Oxygen, where another road converges with it from Chawk Bazaar via Muradpur. On its way to Hatahazari, the road covers such important landmarks as BRTC Bus Depot, Chittagong Cantonment and Chittagong University, all places of great traffic movement. At Hathazari, the road bifurcates, one going north to Nazir Hat Bibir Hat Khagrachari and finally to Karer Hat; and the other taking a northeastern bend touches the hills at the end of Raozan and winds upward to Rangamati. The road between Chittagong and Nazirhat has become the only thoroughfare of three districts of the region, but the irony is, it is also one of the narrowest inter-district roads in Bangladesh. The road has never been widened, and has remained the
same old serpentine kind of path, thus becoming a mockery of a highway. Because of immense pressure of people and transports on the road, the movement of traffic has become very slow. A journey now to the CU campus by a CU teachers' bus takes seventy to eighty minutes, which was merely a 35-to-40 minutes' journey five years back.
It is quite essential that a parallel highway about 8 miles be built from Oxygen to Hathazari. The existing road, because of the network of military connections between Chittagong Cantonment and the cantonments in the Hill Tracts, has got immense strategic importance, and a comprehensive development of it is very much in order. The zigzag road must be straightened first, by acquiring public land, if necessary.
In the end, I want to refer to a popular American TV series, The Paper Chase, a law-flick, where the central character Professor Kingsley takes a case to the court holding the authority responsible for negligence of duty. The court accepts and passes a verdict against the state authority. Thus, Professor Kingsley proves that every road accident is caused by a neglect on the part of the traffic and road authorities. This 'higher responsibility' toward the nation is never present in our higher authority, and such accidents as the one under this column occur.