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Mayhem on the highways

Mohammed Nawazish
THE incidence of gruesome road accidents, especially on highways, has reached a catastrophic Level, and is still on tire rise. It was rewaled in a high-profile workshop organised by the Accident Research Centre last November that 12,000 deaths occur every year in road accidents, though the number of seriously injured and maimed should be much more.
It was also revealed that nearly 80% of the deaths were of people in the age group 5 to 45years, which has a significant economic and societal impact. It also eats up around two percent of the country’s Gross National Product, which amounts to about Tk 5000 crore each year.
The incidents are escalating at a fearsome pace, and the authorities that control and manage the roads and highways are getting more and more ineffective in stemming the surge. Expansion of the road network is an essential precondition for development and it will haw to continue, but a parallel spurt in the destruction of human life on the roads is a painful antithesis that has to be tackled with all the available
strategies and resources.
In this write-up. I'll take up only the roads and highways outside die city limits. These long roads are the potent source of death of thousands of innocent travellers and pedestrians. The concerned authorities are working round the clock to check the devastating trend, but so far they have failed to get anywhere near the target.
In fact, there is absolute anarchy prevailing in die entire transportation network, making travel increasingly hazardous.
Why do such disastrous accidents occur so frequently? Human error arising out of sickness, exhaustion, alcohol intake, tension, daredevilry, and such unpredictable factors like structure collapse, signal failure, mechanical fault, poor visibility and the like, play a significant role behind accidents in all countries, including the highly dewloped ones.
In August last year, a busy four-lane bridge over the river Mississippi right in the heart of Minneapolis suddenly caved in, tossing off a number of vehicles with passengers into the mighty river. Prolonged maintenance failure was found to be the cause of the sudden collapse. This is significant factor, but we have
a few more factors to add in our context.
• Reckless driving is the primary cause of accidents on our highways. The rare speed-limit indications create no impression at all on the drivers. Large, coloured boards at close intervals, with blinking lights at night, would have some positive impact.
• Similarly, "no overtaking" signs are seldom vtsible. Sizable coloured boards at regular intervals would frequently give out a warning signal. A few days back, as I was travelling to Gazipur in a car, I found the entire road from Uttara to Gazipur junction totally blocked as buses and trucks in four parallel row’s clogged the road in such a way that not even a bicycle could slip by. It took one and a half hours to creep out of the awful jam. It would be useful to fix speed breakers made of loose corrugated, steel sheets that would emit a loud creaking noise if the vehicle did not slow down.
• We seldom see electric signals and road markings on highways. This is all the more conspicuous at road junctions and pedestrian pathways. Pale and dusty signals are of little use; brighter and prominent fights, preferably in a row,
usually have a psychological effect on die drivers Bright road markings indicating road divisions, turning directions, and the permission or otherwise of overtaking also send meaningful messages. Because signal configuration in general is dependent on electricity, it has to be ensured dial power outage does not affect signalling devices.
• Road dividers are very useful in preventing frontal collisions. Even in the most developed countries, dividers in die form of low concrete walls, closely dug pillars or wide patches of vacant fields, run along die thousands of miles of busy highways. We have to be very particular in this area, despite financial constraints.
• Bumpy road surface, potholes and invisible pits and breaches often cause the drivers to sharply veer sideways at high speed, resulting in fatal imbalance and smash-up. Every year die monsoon rains and Hoods take a heavy toll on roads.
• In addition, narrow rickety bridges on older roads frequently come up as positive death traps. Road maintenance as a continuous and all-season process is an imperative need to ensure safe traffic movement on roads and highways, and the responsibility squarely lies with the government agencies. There can be no excuse for failure in view of the high risk involved.
• The entry of slow-moving, manually operated vehicles like rickshaws, bikes, vans, push carts,
carriages etc should be prohibited on the main roads. They may have different tracks for movement but those must be metres away from the main road. These slow moving objects often cause fatal accidents on account of technical limitations and absolute ignorance of traffic rules combined with obstinacy.
• Firm measures are needed to restrain and regulate these cheap and primitive vehicles. To this, it may be added that no bazaars, shops or assembly of people close to the highway should ever be allowed; for safety of the speeding vehicles and the people on the roadside.
• To lessen the traffic flow we must upgrade and modernise our railway network to make it more attractive and convenient to the travellers. At the moment, the condition of the railway stations, tracks, bogies, and service is so deplorable that people try to avoid train journey at all costs.
An attractive railway service would
have sliced off more than a half of the number of road commuters. Unfortunately, this alternative has never been addressed as an integrated part of the same basic issues — quick transportation, and safety and security of long distance passengers. I would have added waterways as well but feel obliged to pull out considering the overall economic situation of the country.
Arguments and suggestions will never end, but the sum total points to one fundamental precept — roads and highways shall have to be
kept under 24-hour surveillance, much like a battle-front. No restriction, no law, no discipline will ever work on the free-for-all trails unless the drivers are 100% convinced that they arc under close watch, and that the violators of rules will not be spared under any circumstances.
Here comes the role of the highway police and the checkposts, both of which are virtually non-existent these days. Once upon a time the creation of highway police was trumpeted loudly, and even colourful cars were
reportedly supplied as their primary tool. These have vanished, and the roads have turned into hunting grounds of rogue drivers and robber gangs.
The one and only cure is to clamp an iron-fisted discipline on highways by permanently deploying an armed and trained highway police force with fast cars or motorcycles, and establishing interconnected observation posts at all vantage points. The highway police should have the power to track and seize vehicles and appre-
hend offenders on the spot.
The situation has reached a point of no return, no amount of theoretical research and dialogue and correspondence can halt the senseless blood bath and devastation on our major thoroughfares. A rigorous and pervasive presence of hard-hitting lawenforcers on roads and highways seems to be the last possible deterrent.
Mohammad Nawazish is a retired senior avi servant
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frequently? Human error arising out of sickness exhaustion, alcohol intake, tension, daredevilry, and such unpredictable factors like structure collapse, signal failure, mechanical fault, poor visibility and the like, play a significant role behind accidents in all countries, including the highly developed ones.***