UNSKILLED and unlicensed drivers are named as main reasons for increased fatalities on the road, but no effective action is taken to improve the situation. There are around 71.61 lakh driving licences against 59.98 lakh registered motor vehicles. Of the licences, 40.11 lakh are professional and 31.5 lakh are non-professional. The driver responsible for the death of two Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology students on April 22 was behind the wheel with an expired driving license. On April 17, in one of the deadliest accidents in recent months, a truck hit several vehicles at a toll booth in Jhalakathi, killing at least 14 people. Preliminary investigations reveal that the driver had a licence for light vehicles but he was driving a heavy vehicle. This is a punishable offence. A ranking Highway Police official insists that out of about 22,000 kilometres of highways under the jurisdiction, they only cover about 3,000 kilometres and it is, therefore, not possible for them to check all driving licences. The Road Transport Authority chair also emphasises the importance of the enforcement of traffic laws. Instead of ensuring strict enforcement, the government has, however, amended the law by reducing the punishment and penalties for traffic rule violation.
The shortage of skilled drivers is a reality. In 2018, the BRTC had three institutes and 14 centres with the capacity to train some 22,000 drivers a year. There were 123 more BRTA-approved driving schools with the capacity to train up to 25,000 people. This means that the combined training capacity is much less than the present-day demand. In 2023, a five-year road safety project with a component for four months of training for 60,000 commercial drivers was approved, but the project implementation has yet to begin. In 2019, transport owners鈥� initiative to train professional drivers with medium and heavy licences under their own facilities to be built on 10-acre government land in Dhaka has also made no progress. The government should have prioritise improving its training capacity. Instead, it repeatedly chose to relax the rule to accommodate unskilled drivers. It is also a regular practice for vehicle owners to manage driving licences and fitness papers with the help of intermediaries, who assure original documents without any verification or legal process. Passenger rights advocates and experts have criticised the government鈥檚 road development projects, which are more focused on building infrastructure than allocating resources for better road safety and traffic management.
The government must, therefore, must prioritise improving the Road Transport Corporation鈥檚 training capacity. It must focus on the strict enforcement of the Road Transport Act 2018, with a special focus corruption in the driving licence and vehicle fitness certificate issuance. The government should make decisions regarding the driving licence issuance policy cautiously, keeping the interests of passengers in mind and without being influenced by transport owners and workers鈥� federations.