The New Nation - Internet Edition

THE number of road accidents shoots up during Eid festivals, and it is no exception this time. It was reported in a national daily on Wednesday that road accidents killed about 40 persons in four days. Eid festivals induce a great deal of mobility. People in great numbers move from their work places to celebrate the festivals at their village homes and then return after the holiday. Accidents are not to be seen as unusual during such a traffic rush period. The increase of road accidents during this period suggests that something is wrong with management of traffic on the roads plus the existence of other factors that lead to those. Accidents again are not only a festival-time phenomenon. These occur in large numbers throughout the year. The available statistics on road accidents in Bangladesh are not very accurate but whatever statistical information are available point to a high rate of the same.

Road accidents in Bangladesh claim on an average 4,000 lives and lead to about 5,000 injuries annually. According to one study, the annual fatality rate from road accidents in Bangladesh is 85.6 per 10,000 vehicles which contrasts poorly even with 47.7 in Myanmar and 62.7 in Nepal. The fatality rate in Bangladesh from road accidents specially contrasts with the developed countries where the number of vehicles are many times higher. The fatality rate in those countries is below 3 per 10,000 vehicles. This explains why Bangladesh is ranked as one of the most road accident prone countries in the world. Time is thus more than ripe to do something concrete for preventing these road accidents. Apart from the human tragedies, the economic costs of such accidents are great. The national cost estimates for road accidents in Bangladesh is Taka 39 billion, which is about 1.5 per cent of the GDP and three times the annual expenditure of the Roads and Highways Department.

The first thing to do must be improved enforcement of traffic rules. The police should strictly apply the rules for catching the offenders such as owners and operators of vehicles who overload, engage in over-speeding and those who do not maintain their vehicles. Highway police was introduced for maintaining vigil over the highways about a couple of years ago. But it suffers from many deficiencies and the situation continues to be business as usual. The task now is to revamp the operations of the highway police. Most highway accidents occur due to brake failures or for drivers losing control of overloaded vehicles. Then, there is the competition to overtake vehicles by occupying the lane earmarked for automobiles coming from the other direction. The training of drivers ought to be rigorous. Drivers are known to get their licences too easily. This practice plus corruption in certifying vehicles as fit for movement must come to an end. Important roads and highways again should be well maintained throughout the year.