Increasing number of road accidents
Plans to control
rash driving have often been ineffective or never
properly implemented. Moreover, the offenders have frequently
escaped justice
Three people were killed in a road accident in the capitals Khilkhet area when a bus crashed into the car from behind. By the time the police arrived the driver had fled. This type of accidents featuring the fleeing of the driver is not new. The accident too, may be forgotten within a short span of time. The filed case may rot beneath piles of unresolved old accident cases. This has become the widespread reality of road accidents in Bangladesh.
One of the main reasons behind the increasing number of road accidents in the country is because our law enforcing agencies have repeatedly failed to deter it by becoming more committed and strategic. Plans to control rash driving have often been ineffective or never properly implemented. Moreover, the offenders have frequently escaped justice with flabbergasting immunity. Also the drivers in this country have seemingly become more audacious than ever before. Its an ominous issue in need of urgent addressing.
According to a recent study, road accidents have claimed one life per hour in 2014 and some 8,589 people were killed in a total of 5, 928 accidents throughout that entire year. Numerically shocking as they may be, fail to reflect the social tragedy related to each life lost to road accidents. This important social and also distressing fact is not being comprehended by our countless reckless truck, bus and car drivers. Exemplary punishments should be handed down and implemented for violating traffic laws. Sadly this is missed in most road related accidental cases.
However, the traffic police have a decisive role to play in identifying and putting an end to the mounting numbers of reckless driving. Some of the key areas dangerous speeding of vehicles, maintenance, repair and expansion of roads, setting up dividers on national highways, cautioning signals for hazardous locations, disseminating information on driving and road safety are where the government needs to work rigorously. Concerned authorities should be more stringent in terms of issuing driving licences. Furthermore, we want our major roads to be equipped with long range CC cameras for non-stop monitoring of moving vehicles and execution of traffic duties.
The culprit bus driver causing those three unexpected deaths should be brought to quick justice and barred from picking up the steering again. Road accidents dont just happen, they are caused and we expect prompt and sincere efforts to fast remove those causes.
