A mockery at the cost of life and limb
FROM PAGE 1
A record 5.42 lakh registered vehicles, which should have renewed their fitness certificates, did not do so as of October 15 last year.
Almost every year this number increases and the number of road crashes also goes up.
Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity, Nirapad Sarak Chai, and Road Safety Foundation, like previous years, published their annual accident reports early this year and said the numbers of road crashes and deaths have increased last year compared to 2021.
According to Jatri Kalyan Samity, 9,951 people were killed in 6,749 road crashes last year. The numbers of crashes and deaths are the highest since 2015 and 19.89 and 27.43 percent higher than those of 2021.
The issue of road safety came to the fore again after a bus, which had no fitness clearance, veered off from the Dhaka-Bhanga expressway and crashed, killing 19 people on Sunday.
The bus should have been taken off the roads four months ago when the authorities suspended its permits following a fatal crash in Gopalganj in November last year.
The Daily Star revisited eight major crashes between Sunday’s crash and a crash in July 2018.
In every incident, either the vehicles involved did not have valid documents or their drivers did not have licences.
For example, the two buses that collided head-on in Rangpur on September 5 last year had no route permits. The crash left at least eight people dead and over 50 hurt.
One of the buses, owned by Abu Raihan, general secretary of the Bangladesh Bus Truck Owners Association, last renewed its annual fitness clearance over a decade ago.
On March 19, 2019, Abrar Ahmed Chowdhury, a student of Bangladesh University of Professionals, was run over and killed by a bus of Suprobhat Paribahan.
Police later found that the bus was actually being driven by its conductor, who had no licence.
Moreover, a BRTA probe later that month found only 18 out of 163 buses of the company had all required documents.
Saidur Rahman, chief executive of Road Safety Foundation, claimed that thousands of unfit vehicles can run paying “monthly money” to a section of highway police members, BRTA officials, and politically connected people.
“They [owners and drivers] do not feel the necessity to update their documents as they can operate without those,” he told The Daily Star yesterday.
And corruption runs deep in the sector.
For example, police on March 15 last year seized a truck which was used in an attempted robbery.
The vehicle with the plate Chattogram Metro-NA-11-2608 has been in the Cumilla Sadar South Police Station since the seizure, but it received a fitness certificate in November last year from Barishal circle of BRTA office without an inspection. The BRTA in February suspended the official responsible.
Transport expert Prof Shamsul Hoque said there is no monitoring and if there is any monitoring, it is also “manageable”. He said monitoring is only done after major incidents.
He told The Daily Star yesterday that there is no visible chain of command to make the responsible officials or staffers accountable and that is making the total system almost dysfunctional.
Osman Ali, general secretary of Bangladesh Road Transport Workers Federation, said the highway police and BRTA officials are not doing their jobs, resulting in unfit vehicles staying on the roads.
Asked why drivers without valid licences were on the roads, he said “This is not an important issue to discuss. The important issue is the BRTA is failing to do its job.”
Khandaker Enayet Ullah, secretary general of Bangladesh Road Transport Owners’ Association, said vehicles without valid papers cannot run if the authorities concerned, especially the highway police, do their jobs properly.
On owners running buses without papers, he said the association does not support this. It is not possible for the association to monitor over 5.5 lakh buses and trucks, he told The Daily Star yesterday.
A top BRTA official, wishing anonymity, said if an owner or a driver can run the vehicles paying (law enforcers) money, then why will they go to the BRTA for the papers?
Contacted, BRTA Chairman Nur Mohammad Mazumder said only seven magistrates run BRTA mobile courts in Dhaka and Chattogram cities. “Is it possible for them to check all vehicles?
“If all stakeholders do not respect the law, then it becomes very difficult to enforce and bring discipline,” he told The Daily Star yesterday.
He said they take action when specific allegations are brought against the BRTA officials.
Highway police Additional Inspector General Md Shahabuddin Khan told this newspaper that they prosecute errant vehicles and drivers, and have fined 1.41 lakh vehicles and drivers Tk 40 crore last year.
He said they also take other measures and hold meetings with stakeholders to increase awareness. “What we observed is that the owners and workers are not serious enough about road safety.”
On law enforcers taking money from errant vehicle owners and drivers, he said they probe each and every specific allegation brought against their members.