The New Nation - Internet Edition

Fourteen people were killed and at least 20 others injured when a picnic party bus hit an electric pole and got electrified in Cox's Bazaar the other day. The bus was carrying 50 people - garment workers and their family members - from the Chittagong area.

In another tragic accident after the last Eid festival, seventy persons were killed at Comilla and this was the worst ever road accident in the country in recent times. The driver of the overloaded bus was speeding fast and this might have led to its skidding off the road and starting a fire in a trapped and upturned state.

These two accidents brought tragedies to many families. But a close look into the state of traffic movement on the highways would make it clear that many of the accidents occur due to sheer callousness of bus-truck drivers. In the absence of effective management of traffic by the law enforcing agencies the roads, especially the highways, are ruled by the operators of these large automobiles and they make full use of the might is right theory.

At one point of time in the early eighties the maximum penalty of drivers for causing death in traffic accidents was death. The penalty was subsequently reduced to prison terms in the face of a movement launched by bus-truck workers' federation. This softening of the arm of the law has been followed by even its weak enforcement by members of the police. People who drive smaller automobiles on roads and highways allege that law enforcers do little to restrain the bus-truck drivers who do not care about the right of operators of other vehicles. Drivers of smaller vehicles thus have to take care of their own safety and submit to the callous driving by operators of buses and trucks.

Available statistics point to a high rate of road accident fatalities in the country. Road accidents in Bangladesh take, on an average, 4,000 lives annually and lead to about 5,000 injuries. There are again, many accidents that are not reported. The annual fatality rate from road accidents in Bangladesh is said to be 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 numbers of vehicles are many times higher. The fatality rate in those countries is reportedly below 3 per 10,000 vehicles.

More than a couple of years ago the government had created the highway police. But members of the travelling public do not feel their presence on the highways where bus and truck operators not only deliberately violate traffic rules, but also engage in deadly competition to overtake each other and also obstruct each other's movement. Operators of small automobiles become hostage to their unruly driving behaviour and have no alternative but to tolerate those without raising a question.

We emphasise that highway police must be properly organised to stop reckless driving on the highways. What is clear is that the bus, and more so the truck, drivers feel free to be reckless. Killing people by reckless driving cannot be ignored as not being murder. The present law protects killing by reckless drivers and must be changed.