Part-II

Several government initiatives to check greenhorn drivers responsible for about 37 per cent of road fatalities have failed over the years letting the unskilled drivers to drive scot-free. In August 2010, the government had planned to enact a more stringent motor vehicles law, with provisions of non-bailable arrest and even capital punishment for the drivers, to curb reckless driving and consequent road accidents.
That new Act—modelled on motor vehicles laws in India, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and the European countries—was supposed to replace the 80-year-old motor vehicle ordinance which was only updated in 1983, when the HM Ershad government amended the law to set three years of imprisonment as the highest punishment for causing death due to negligent driving. Earlier, the highest punishment was a seven-year jail term.
The erstwhile Dhaka Transport Coordination Board (DTCB) had prepared the draft of the new Motor Vehicles Act, 2011 and sent it to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). The authorities also took the initiative to amend the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) and the Penal Code in step with the new law that would mete
out harsh punishments to rogue drivers in order to ensure road safety. But violent  agitations by drivers and labour leaders stonewalled the amendments.
Meanwhile, the country’s roads and highways were flooded with unskilled and unlicensed drivers.
According to statistics available with the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA), there are 26.40 lakh registered vehicles in the country at present. However, only 17 lakh driving licences have been issued by the agency, indicating that almost 10 lakh drivers operate without licences.
Five years ago, there were 14.23 lakh vehicles, and the number of license holders was 9.98 lakh.
To check the flooding of vehicles on roads without licensed drivers, the government had planned to introduce driving training courses in technical schools and colleges under the Vocational Education Board back in 2012.
In April 2012, the communications ministry—in line with a BRTA suggestion—wrote to the education ministry to introduce motor-driving training courses in the curriculum of all technical schools and colleges.
BRTA made that suggestion after a meeting of the National Road Safety Council to make roads free of rookie drivers, bring down accident rates and improve the traffic situation.
In 2011–12, several BRTA drives found that some 80 unauthorised driving schools across major cities were churning out hundreds of greenhorn drivers with faulty training.
But The Independent came to know that very little progress has been made in this respect.
Aktaruzzaman, director of curriculum of the Bangladesh Technical Education Board (BTEB), told The Independent that the BTEB had designed a curriculum and sent the curriculum to the directorate of technical education for necessary steps.
“We have reviewed the communications ministry’s recommendation to start a driving trade course in technical schools and colleges and ask the directorate to take necessary steps in several letters,” he said.
Babar Ali, director (development and planning) of the directorate of technical education, who recently got transferred to Comilla Polytechnic Institute as its principal, said the driving trade course has started in some technical schools.
“There is a total of 64 technical schools in the country and the course has been started at some 10 schools. But the problem is, because of the lack of funding and proper manpower, the courses couldn’t be run properly.”
Ali said that starting a driving trade course was not an easy process. There are no instructors and the technical schools and colleges barely have the budget to afford a driving trade course facility, he added.
The schools that have started the course have done so with the old cars allotted to the district education officers, as per the directorate’s instructions.
“But in many cases, those cars were not given to the technical schools as that single car is being used for many official purposes inside the district,” Ali said.    
Tapan Kumar Saha, BRTA’s deputy director of enforcement, said that even a large number of licensed drivers were not competent enough, as they have received unsound training from unauthorised schools.
The deputy director added that these drivers got their licences through the backdoor with help from the training schools, without taking a driving test.
BRTA’s director of engineering Nurul Islam said that there was a common misconception among people that BRTA provided driving licences, but in reality the agency only issued a licence after receiving driving test results from the driving test competency board.
“The driving test competency board is headed by the additional district magistrate, who is chairman of the board,” he said. “The BRTA only has an assistant director on the board as member-secretary.”
He said after completion of driving tests, the board sends the results and recommendations to the BRTA. “The BRTA only issues the licence as per results of the tests and the board’s recommendations,” he added.
According to Islam, driving tests in Dhaka and Chittagong circle of BRTA are conducted five and two times a week respectively, due to the large number of candidates. But the tests are conducted only once a month in the other 62 BRTA circles (57 district circles and five metropolitan circles), he said.
He said there are 41 BRTA-authorised driving schools in the country, including 26 in Dhaka. “The schools can run two shifts a day and can have 30 students per shift for a four-month course.” He admitted that the number of schools was inadequate for the large number of candidates.
To tackle the situation, some steps have been taken, he said, adding that 20 centres under the ministry of expatriates’ welfare have already started giving training to the drivers, as per the BRTA’s requests.
“The department of youth development under the ministry of youth and sports will soon start driving trade courses. We are providing technical assistance to the department to do so,” he said. The director of the transport regulator, however, said the biggest step would be to introduce proper driving trade courses in technical schools and colleges. “From BRTA, we had suggested introduction of trade courses in technical schools and colleges, so that their premises could be used for test driving.”
He also said if trade courses are introduced in technical schools and colleges, more people would be interested in taking part. Prof. Moazzem Hossain, director of BUET’s Accident Research Institute (ARI), told The Independent recently that their research has found that some 37 per cent accidents occur because of rough and impatient driving while 53 per cent for over speeding.