When people are crushed by the wheels of a killer truck or flung about and splattered over a busy highway, the issue of safety plays second fiddle to "catching the culprits". As people take dangerously to moribund awareness, A Maher rides with the commuters to see why safety has lost its seatbelts

CC A T 1 HEN visibility of X/X/speed breakers on ▼ V the roads is bad the driver loses control of his vehicle If he goes over one while executing a relatively accelerated motion. This loss of control. even i( only momentary, results in the endangering of a passenger's life".

The echoes of an analyst on road safety? No. This is from a Dhaka baby-laxl driver who has had his road sense Jolted by the concept of driver safety. Mohammad Rahman is Just a baby-taxi (also called the autorickshaw) driver toiling for his livelihood in the clogged streets of Dhaka. But he is a bit different from the rest. Rahman is trying to set a unique precedent for the other baby-taxi drivers of Dhaka in terms of driving safety. He has Installed a seatbelt in the driving seat of his three-wheeler and proudly tells the 'tale of the seatbelt' to many an inquisitive customer. But the success story must go to the appropriate levels to make all the other such taxis a safer ride. As commuter life in Dhaka transforms itself from hectic to nail-biting, the issue of commuter safety seems to have gone into a dangerous oblivion.

Frustrated by the grime and dust of Dhaka's worst traffic seasons people have started to accept life without safety, even the most fundamental. The extent to which baby-taxis or any sort of public commuter trans-

port compiles to safety standards is an alarming question -- most are not even close to being called safe. Overloaded buses that are reeling dangerously on one side, battered tempos and of course the polluting auto-rlckshaws are everyday glaring examples of the risks taken by office-goers.

Safety concerns can include more than Just the physical structural protection. Poisonous exhausts from surrounding vehicles. loud whistling horns, unchecked engine noise and the training of the driver himself constitute a safety issue. Many commuters claim the inside of the babytaxi is not designed properly to protect the passengers during or right before an accident.

“The entrances on either side to the back of the taxi (where the passenger sits) are too narrow and cramped" says Atlq Chowdhury, a daily commuter of these three-wheelers.

"When a person senses a possible collision he cannot scramble out of the taxi quickly enough to avoid serious injury. The driver, on the other hand, has much more space on both sides to jump out."

That brings us back to the issue of how safe the drivers are. Mohammad Rahman, in fact, had driver safety on his mind when he thought of the seatbelt for his baby-taxi. Fortunately hp received quite a bit of media

attention for his little innovation. Rahman claims to have been interviewed by a crew from an Italian television channel, journalists and passengers alike.

"I feel very happy to be interviewed by curious people who have never seen a seatbelt on a baby-taxi." smiles a beaming Rahman.

“They are usually amused by its history. 1 got the seatbelt sent to me from a friend from Singapore (in a gleaming aluminum case) and It cost a lot of money. I tell you."

But he has received little support from the different associations of baby-taxi drivers and owners, mainly on the issue of cost effectiveness and installation charges. Rahman claims that with some persuasion It could be tried out on a pilot sample of scooters; the costs are not that much.

“People also don't have to be afraid of shooting transportation costs. At least for me I will not raise my fares."

Getting a safer ride will no doubt be a bigger Investment but for those Dhakaltes who are too engrossed in their daily hassles to think better of themselves and others, the issue of commuter safety remains to be hammered in. As people overtake busses and tempos, getting them to their places in one piece will be a sum of the efforts of drivers and passengers alike.