TRAFFIC rules, especially the directives that the Dhaka Metropolitan Police issued on September 4, 2018 in the wake of the road safety movement that the students held in July that year, are frequently flouted, adding to the risk of road accidents. The offenders include all types of road users 鈥� city service buses, modified utility vehicles, motorcycles and pedestrians. The city police in 2018 declared city roads off-limits to modified utility vehicles. They asked city service buses to keep doors shut when they run and display photographs and mobile number of members on the buss staff in an easily noticeable place inside the bus and carry update documents. The police asked bus owners to appoint drivers and their assistants on salary. The police also said that no motorcyclists would be sold fuel unless the riders wear helmets and imposed a ban on wrong-lane and footpath driving. But all the directives have fallen flat for almost six years. Road safety experts seek to blame the culture of disregard for rules and negligence of authorities in bringing order on the road for such a situation. Experts also blame a nexus of officials, both police and road administration, and transport leaders that have encouraged the breach of directives by vehicle owners and drivers.
While some bus services do not have licence to run vehicles and do not even have fitness certificates for the buses that they run, repeated attempts of the city police and other authorities have so far failed to make city service buses pick up and drop passengers at stops, even on busy road stretches, which greatly adds to risks of road accidents. Competition between buses on the run has hardly stopped although such incidents have led to fatalities. The payment of drivers and their assistants based on the trips that they could make, instead of fixed monthly salary, is blamed for such dangerous competition. Buses hardly keep their doors shut when they run. The display of photographs and mobile number of members on the bus staff have long fallen into disuse as the furore of the road safety movement died down. In many cases, the display is still there, but dirt that they gathered has made them illegible. Modified utility vehicles still run on city roads, especially on Manik Mia Avenue, Farmgate and Dhanmondi areas. While breaches of all sorts keep taking place, road safety experts rightly question the rule of the authorities that are meant to enforce the rules and hold anyone standing in breach to account.
Official statistics show that as of March 2024, 8,132 buses and 6,478 minibuses that have served out their 20 years of useful life run on the road. The statistics also show that only 3,019 buses and minibuses run inside the city with updated route permits. A Transparency International Bangladesh study in March showed that private bus companies in Bangladesh pay Tk 10.59 billion a year to road transport and police officials, local government representatives, political leaders and even transport owners and workers鈥� organisations. Such a huge amount of money traded suggests why the malpractice in road regime does not go. The government must be stringent about breaking the nexus to put the road regime in order.
