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Rickshaws clog streets

Traffic police relax rules to allow non-motorised vehicles on city roads off limits to them

Helemul Alam
Due to poor traffic rules enforcement, a large number of rickshaws travel on city streets that are off limits to nonmotorised vehicles, worsening congestion and increasing risk of accidents.
Rickshaws and rickshaw-vans are now a near-regular mode of transport on Airport Road, where vehicles probably travel the fastest in the capital. On Mirpur Road, one might be excused for thinking there are no restrictions on rickshaws on that thoroughfare.
The mix of slow-moving and fast-moving traffic on the same street does not go well.
According to a recent study by Accident Research Institute of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, based on data provided by the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, victims of 10 percent fatal accidents on city streets are rickshaw pullers and their passengers.
Rickshaws largely defy all traffic rules and pose high risk for accidents. Their pullers would blissfully risk lives to cut a comer violating traffic rules.
Their passengers are also often seen preferring to take a risk to get ahead of other vehicles rather than playing it safe. The passengers are often seen defending rickshaw pullers on the street when their disregard for traffic rules leads to mishaps. Since the political turmoil which began late last year, rickshaws have been freely moving on main streets like Mirpur Road, Panthapath, Manik Mia Avenue, Phoenix Road, Ittefaq intersection to Bangabhaban, Abdul Gani Road and between Matshya Bhaban and Shahbagh intersections.
The newfangled battery-run rickshaws pose a greater risk as these home-made rickshaws, which are just regular rickshaws with an electric motor attached, are not designed to endure speeds they usually do on the streets.
They are neither recognised by the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) as a motorised vehicle, nor by the city corporations as a non-motorised three-wheeler. Yet nobody does anything about these illegal rickshaws.
Due to rising congestion in the city, the government between 2002 and 2004 banned rickshaws on important city streets. But many rickshaw pullers The Daily Star talked to said they get to use those streets
just by paying traffic police or ansar members on duty a bribe ofTk 5 to Tk 10.
"I have given Tk 5 to a traffic police at Matshya Bhaban to go to Shahbagh last week," said Mohammad Barek, a rickshaw puller of Madhubagh of Moghbazar.
Anowar Hossain, a car driver who travels to Mirpur-1 from New Market everyday, said it was very difficult to stop his car when a rickshaw or rickshaw-van swerves in front of it, especially at night.
There are around 5 lakh illegal rickshaws and rickshaw vans in the capital on top of around 79,000 rickshaws and 7,793 rickshaw vans with permission from the Dhaka city corporations, said sources in Dhaka north and south city corporations.
Tanweer Hasan, director of Accident Research Institute, said the main purpose of a street off limits to non-motorised vehicles is get better mobility and the mobility gets compromised when rickshaws run on the street along with motorised vehicles.
"Rickshaw should not be used for long-distant commuting and should be restricted within an area or for short distance travels," he said.
Dhaka Transport Coordination Board's ex-additional executive director SM Salehuddin said separate rickshaw lanes in pocket areas should be set up but key thoroughfares should remain free of rickshaws but more buses are needed to reduce congestion.
Deputy Commissioner (traffic south) Khan Muhammad Redwan of Dhaka Metropolitan Police claimed that when the flow of vehicles increases four to five times the capacity of the streets, traffic police struggle to manage and that was when some traffic rules remain unenforced.
He said they were trying to keep the thoroughfares free of rickshaws 24 hours a day.
About policemen taking bribes, Redwan said if they discover involvement of any traffic police, they would take immediate action.