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Truly yours Tame the traffic and help the economy
Mohammad A Sattar
Someone said if you want to read a country’s condition study it’s traffic and university campus situations. If things are fine out in these two places you may well be convinced that things are going fine. It also provides evidence of the efficiency of the government.
While we deliberate in various forums about the traffic and related issues, we just forget to address the focal point. That is, the management factor. Our traffic management is at the worse. There is practically no management of traffic at work. Add with that, the lack of traffic knowledge of the road users and culture of impunity.
A closer study of the situation will give you the shivers; let me try to pen down the following:
a. Drivers do not follow by the speed limits set up for each street. Although there is speed limit for all the roads.
b. There is no attention of lanes to be followed. The drivers are indiscriminately swerving their wheels making it dangerous for all.
c. There is a mad race of dodging the signal lights. You will see as cars or busses or any other vehicle nears the signal lights it accelerates the pace of his vehicle to jump the signal light. And when they cannot make it, they stop their vehicles with hard brake making it so dangerous for all. There are reports of death of pedestrians while crossing Zebra crossing.
d. Another dangerous and disgusting thing is the buses stopping right in the
middle of the road to drop passengers. Mostly even do not stop as they keep
moving , while the passengers are pushed out of the vehicles. You can see the
result.
e. Another aspect of our rowdy drivers is overtaking in the busy thoroughfares. Most of them they bump into each other and causing dents. All this while the commuters are at their mercy.
f. This they do because they are in a hurry to make more trips through their routes to make more money.
g. Add to it the great traffic police. They will keep the vehicle standing at signal points for a long time to clear the other side causing untold sufferings to the soul and wastage of gas. These could have been dealt with if they had this stopping and clearing every three minutes. What leads them to resort to such practice is a wonder!
h. The recklessness of the drivers of smaller vehicle like tempos, human haulers, auto rickshaws etc., and also the man pulled rickshaws. All follow a typical pattern of self made (only in Bangladesh)rules.
i. A large number of vehicles are running without valid papers. This again is helped by the traffic police on duty. They collect heavy tolls from these unscrupulous drivers and the drivers are happy to donate this money to ‘manage’ the traffic police.
So there is no rule of law out in the streets. The law enforcing members are mostly corrupt and run the affairs in a free-style manner, as though things will function endlessly at their will. There is no accountability for them and for the law dodgers they can get away with whatever unprincipled act they commit, from dodging signals, reckless driving, or even running over a hapless pedestrian.
Successive governments take up numerous projects for development, but the transport and traffic management never received any attention whatsoever. The concerned ministry and the civil society must come with prompt management formula with immediate effect and address the situation. They should realize the loss of work hours, loss of fuel (energy), and finally the suffering of the commuters.
The writer is a columnist, development consultant and biographer. Email: malisattar@outlook.com