Better road safety essential

The trip based system and drivers paying daily rent to bus owners are major reasons behind the rising number of road accidents

According to a World Bank analysis, average traffic speed in Dhaka has dropped from 21 kilometer to 7 kilometer per hour over the last 10 years. Congestion in the capital kills about 3.2million working hours every day. Road accidents in Bangladesh have reached an epidemic level with over 1,000 people dead in road crashes in the first three months of this year. According to data compiled by Accident Research Institute (ARI) of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Bangladesh witnessed a total of 789 road crashes that left 1,049 people dead and 2,015 injured from January to March in 2018. Among these mishaps, 57 road accidents occurred in Dhaka, taking 59 lives and injuring 115 people. Blaming the untrained drivers alone might not be the solution, as 60 per cent of the road accident victims were pedestrians.The public transport system frequently comes to a halt on the streets of Dhaka for long periods of time, which is quite common. But the problem becomes unbearable in summer due to the heat. Unable to suffer the summer heat for an extended period of time, the passengers push the drivers to drive faster. The drivers comply with the passengers’ demand most of the time.Commenting on the alarming rise in road accidents, he said: Pedestrians have a habit of walking on the streets haphazardly, which in turn increases the risk of road accidents. But most of the time, the vehicle driver is blamed for an incident.

The unfair method of payment coupled with the fact that transport owners employ unqualified drivers and operate largely unfit vehicles further institutionalises reckless driving, making it the norm rather than the exception. Indeed, according to BRTA data, there are 31 lakh vehicles across the country without fitness certificates and 77 percent of drivers do not hold valid licences.

Thus for our roads to be made safer, it is absolutely vital for these root causes to be addressed. But is imprisoning a reckless driver and slapping him with an unrealistic five lakh taka fine (which probably will remain unrealisable) actually the best way to address the problem given that reckless drivers are the symptom and not the cause of the problem? As we have already seen, factors which cause over-speeding and reckless driving are a direct result of how transport owners operate the industry and the working conditions they impose on transport workers, so it is only when these owners are held accountable that the root causes of road accidents can effectively be addressed.

Much controversy surrounds the new Road Transport Act 2018 which has been the subject of massive protests by road transport workers who perceive the new law to be unduly harsh on them.They are particularly unhappy with the non-bailable nature of certain driving offences under the Act and the insertion of a provision which makes a maximum of Tk 5 lakh fine payable by negligent drivers.

This protest gives the impression that the 2018 Act is overwhelmingly pro-pedestrian in its effort to ensure road safety. And this new law has also been hailed as the much-awaited panacea to our road safety concerns in public dialogues. In light of this, it is worth examining the extent to which the 2018 Act does in fact put road accident victims in a better position than before and whether it can be expected to make our roads safer.In order to answer these interrelated questions, we must first enquire what causes road accidents in the first place. A research report by Accident Research Institute (ARI) of BUET identified that over-speeding and careless driving are two main causes responsible for 53 percent and 38 percent of the casualties in road crashes, respectively. Why is this the case? Are our transport workers bloodthirsty hounds physically incapable of safe driving? Or is it because they work under conditions which trigger and facilitate unsafe driving? In this regard, forcing transport owners to pay compensation to victims of road deaths and injuries is one way to hold them to account. Unfortunately, this is precisely what the 2018 Act tragically fails to do. Previously, under section 128 of the Motor Vehicles Ordinance 1983 (which the 2018 Act replaces), motor vehicle owners were held liable to pay compensation to victims of road accidents if the insurance coverage was inadequate to cover their losses.

A Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal would be constituted to specifically deal with compensation claims from road accidents. For instance, it was under this law that Catherine Masud successfully imposed a compensation liability of Tk 4.3 crore on the owners of the bus which killed her husband and famous filmmaker Tareque Masud.

However, the 2018 Act not only removes compensation liability of an owner whose vehicle caused an accident but also removes the provision requiring a Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal to be set up. This is because Chapter 10 of the 2018 Act (which deals with compensation) replaces a road accident victim's right to sue motor vehicle owners for compensation before a tribunal with the right to apply for financial aid from a rather charitably termed.This fund will be established from these sources mainly: grants from the government, yearly nominal contributions from motor vehicle owners, fines obtained under the Act, and grants from motor vehicle owners' and workers' associations as per Section 57 of the 2018 Act. This therefore virtually nullifies the operation of compensation liability on the motor vehicle owner whose employee causes a fatal road accident or injury in any given case.This is because this owner's only possible contribution to the compensation award would be the nominal yearly contribution they, along with all other motor vehicle owners, made to the fund.

So while transport owners had a hefty price to pay if their vehicles killed or injured any person under the 1983 Ordinance, the 2018 Act appears to grant them total immunity from such liability. In fact, if the Catherine Masud case was pursued under the 2018 Act rather than the 1983 Ordinance, the bus owners would have had no liability to pay compensa tion.Experts have long suggested that one of the key reasons behind rash driving of transport workers is the unfair method of payment they receive. Instead of being paid a respectable weekly wage, transport workers are paid per trip. So the higher the number of trips they can complete, the more they will get paid. Naturally, this type of piece-rate payment directly incentivises drivers to complete as many trips as possible in as little time as possible (e.g. without taking adequate breaks or complying with speed regulations), which in turn results in over-speeding and careless driving. A colleague of mine once told me how during a night journey back to Dhaka from Cox's Bazar, when all the passengers were fast asleep, he saw a pubescent bus helper steering the wheel of the vehicle since the overworked and sleep-deprived bus driver had passed out on the driver's seat. Although this year in August, transport owners pledged to abandon the contractual system, The BRTA, for the last three years, has been running a training program for the implementation of safer roads.

Under this initiative, drivers are receiving practical training and licenses are issued only to trained drivers. Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority said that the government is planning to implement a project for establishing specific rules and regulations for bus owners and drivers. Under the project, the government will foot the bill for losses, with aims to create a friendly transportation environment for both the drivers and the passengers on the road.Drivers will be free from the additional stress of trying to complete their trip quota. This in turn could help reduce road accidents by 50 per cent. Drivers are driving vehicles on the streets in an unfair environment.

The trip based system and drivers paying daily rent to bus owners are major reasons behind the rising number of road accidents. Drivers pay most of the operating cost, leading to fierce competition among them on the road. Experts have recommended a number of moves to improve the current road safety issues, such as repairing the roads, improving the traffic police control system and ensuring more cooperation between the workers and owners.

The writer is a columnist

[email protected]

 

Better road safety essential

The trip based system and drivers paying daily rent to bus owners are major reasons behind the rising number of road accidents

According to a World Bank analysis, average traffic speed in Dhaka has dropped from 21 kilometer to 7 kilometer per hour over the last 10 years. Congestion in the capital kills about 3.2million working hours every day. Road accidents in Bangladesh have reached an epidemic level with over 1,000 people dead in road crashes in the first three months of this year. According to data compiled by Accident Research Institute (ARI) of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Bangladesh witnessed a total of 789 road crashes that left 1,049 people dead and 2,015 injured from January to March in 2018. Among these mishaps, 57 road accidents occurred in Dhaka, taking 59 lives and injuring 115 people. Blaming the untrained drivers alone might not be the solution, as 60 per cent of the road accident victims were pedestrians.The public transport system frequently comes to a halt on the streets of Dhaka for long periods of time, which is quite common. But the problem becomes unbearable in summer due to the heat. Unable to suffer the summer heat for an extended period of time, the passengers push the drivers to drive faster. The drivers comply with the passengers demand most of the time.Commenting on the alarming rise in road accidents, he said: Pedestrians have a habit of walking on the streets haphazardly, which in turn increases the risk of road accidents. But most of the time, the vehicle driver is blamed for an incident. The unfair method of payment coupled with the fact that transport owners employ unqualified drivers and operate largely unfit vehicles further institutionalises reckless driving, making it the norm rather than the exception. Indeed, according to BRTA data, there are 31 lakh vehicles across the country without fitness certificates and 77 percent of drivers do not hold valid licences. Thus for our roads to be made safer, it is absolutely vital for these root causes to be addressed. But is imprisoning a reckless driver and slapping him with an unrealistic five lakh taka fine (which probably will remain unrealisable) actually the best way to address the problem given that reckless drivers are the symptom and not the cause of the problem? As we have already seen, factors which cause over-speeding and reckless driving are a direct result of how transport owners operate the industry and the working conditions they impose on transport workers, so it is only when these owners are held accountable that the root causes of road accidents can effectively be addressed. Much controversy surrounds the new Road Transport Act 2018 which has been the subject of massive protests by road transport workers who perceive the new law to be unduly harsh on them.They are particularly unhappy with the non-bailable nature of certain driving offences under the Act and the insertion of a provision which makes a maximum of Tk 5 lakh fine payable by negligent drivers. This protest gives the impression that the 2018 Act is overwhelmingly pro-pedestrian in its effort to ensure road safety. And this new law has also been hailed as the much-awaited panacea to our road safety concerns in public dialogues. In light of this, it is worth examining the extent to which the 2018 Act does in fact put road accident victims in a better position than before and whether it can be expected to make our roads safer.In order to answer these interrelated questions, we must first enquire what causes road accidents in the first place. A research report by Accident Research Institute (ARI) of BUET identified that over-speeding and careless driving are two main causes responsible for 53 percent and 38 percent of the casualties in road crashes, respectively. Why is this the case? Are our transport workers bloodthirsty hounds physically incapable of safe driving? Or is it because they work under conditions which trigger and facilitate unsafe driving? In this regard, forcing transport owners to pay compensation to victims of road deaths and injuries is one way to hold them to account. Unfortunately, this is precisely what the 2018 Act tragically fails to do. Previously, under section 128 of the Motor Vehicles Ordinance 1983 (which the 2018 Act replaces), motor vehicle owners were held liable to pay compensation to victims of road accidents if the insurance coverage was inadequate to cover their losses. A Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal would be constituted to specifically deal with compensation claims from road accidents. For instance, it was under this law that Catherine Masud successfully imposed a compensation liability of Tk 4.3 crore on the owners of the bus which killed her husband and famous filmmaker Tareque Masud. However, the 2018 Act not only removes compensation liability of an owner whose vehicle caused an accident but also removes the provision requiring a Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal to be set up. This is because Chapter 10 of the 2018 Act (which deals with compensation) replaces a road accident victims right to sue motor vehicle owners for compensation before a tribunal with the right to apply for financial aid from a rather charitably termed.This fund will be established from these sources mainly: grants from the government, yearly nominal contributions from motor vehicle owners, fines obtained under the Act, and grants from motor vehicle owners and workers associations as per Section 57 of the 2018 Act. This therefore virtually nullifies the operation of compensation liability on the motor vehicle owner whose employee causes a fatal road accident or injury in any given case.This is because this owners only possible contribution to the compensation award would be the nominal yearly contribution they, along with all other motor vehicle owners, made to the fund. So while transport owners had a hefty price to pay if their vehicles killed or injured any person under the 1983 Ordinance, the 2018 Act appears to grant them total immunity from such liability. In fact, if the Catherine Masud case was pursued under the 2018 Act rather than the 1983 Ordinance, the bus owners would have had no liability to pay compensa tion.Experts have long suggested that one of the key reasons behind rash driving of transport workers is the unfair method of payment they receive. Instead of being paid a respectable weekly wage, transport workers are paid per trip. So the higher the number of trips they can complete, the more they will get paid. Naturally, this type of piece-rate payment directly incentivises drivers to complete as many trips as possible in as little time as possible (e.g. without taking adequate breaks or complying with speed regulations), which in turn results in over-speeding and careless driving. A colleague of mine once told me how during a night journey back to Dhaka from Coxs Bazar, when all the passengers were fast asleep, he saw a pubescent bus helper steering the wheel of the vehicle since the overworked and sleep-deprived bus driver had passed out on the drivers seat. Although this year in August, transport owners pledged to abandon the contractual system, The BRTA, for the last three years, has been running a training program for the implementation of safer roads. Under this initiative, drivers are receiving practical training and licenses are issued only to trained drivers. Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority said that the government is planning to implement a project for establishing specific rules and regulations for bus owners and drivers. Under the project, the government will foot the bill for losses, with aims to create a friendly transportation environment for both the drivers and the passengers on the road.Drivers will be free from the additional stress of trying to complete their trip quota. This in turn could help reduce road accidents by 50 per cent. Drivers are driving vehicles on the streets in an unfair environment. The trip based system and drivers paying daily rent to bus owners are major reasons behind the rising number of road accidents. Drivers pay most of the operating cost, leading to fierce competition among them on the road. Experts have recommended a number of moves to improve the current road safety issues, such as repairing the roads, improving the traffic police control system and ensuring more cooperation between the workers and owners. The writer is a columnist [email protected]