A treacherous 27km

No one actually knows why this road is dangerous. Why accidents keep happening over and over. Yesterday was just another day when a bystander became a victim.

Ruma Khatun, 22, a day labourer, was killed when hit by an SUV. She was standing beside the Rajshahi-Chapainawabganj highway in Kadirpur area of Godagari upazila.

Police seized the vehicle, a Pajero of Pally Bidyut Samity, but the driver and the passenger “fled”.

According to police, the 27km stretch of the highway going through Rajshahi has become treacherous although it was repaired in May.

On July 23, six accidents occurred within a span of 14 hours in Godagari, killing eight people including three members of a family. Only two weeks earlier, on July 5, at least 10 people were injured in six other accidents in two and half hours, said police.

“The highway has become accident-prone -- at least one happening each day,” said Zahangir Alam, officer-in-charge of Godagari Police Station. “One cause is the slippery road. Often brakes do not work here,” he said.

“It happened in yesterday's accident too -- the Pajero's brakes did not work on the faulty road. It skidded before hitting the woman,” he claimed.

He said the Pajero tried to avoid hitting a pedestrian who was crossing the road at the time, but it ended up knocking down Ruma, a bystander.

The transport workers also blame “faulty” construction of the highway.

Badsha Hossain, a microbus driver, said this highway is different. “I can't trust myself while driving on this road. When I hit the brake, my vehicle hardly stops at the place where I want it to stop. I don't know why this happens.”

He said brick kiln owners use the highway for carrying mud, and many parts of the road become slippery for that too.

The highway witnesses accidents mostly at the curves -- Mohishalbari, Kamarpara, Sultanganj, Railgate Bazar, Sarangpur, Chhoyghati, and Rajabari.

The engineers of Roads and Highways Department (RHD), however, argue that reckless  driving and indifference to follow road signs are to blame.

Suniti Chakma, executive engineer of RHD, Rajshahi division, said the drivers become reckless when they see a “well-built and widened” road. “Those drivers do not care for road signs and meet with accidents.”

He said the department hung at least six road signs, asking the users to be careful about the dangerous points and follow the speed limits. Besides, during rain, all roads become slippery and drivers need to have extra caution, he added.

In May, RHD put a new layer of asphalt (overlay) on the highway spending Tk 30 crore, the official said.

Dr NHM Kamrujjaman Serker, a professor of civil engineering at Rajshahi University of Engineering and Technology (Ruet), said a road cannot be blamed solely.

“Accidents occur due to many reasons. Careless driving, bad road conditions, and movement of different categories of vehicles, unauthorised vehicles, all of these may play their parts in causing accidents,” he told The Daily Star.

“In our country accidents are not thoroughly investigated, that's why the reasons behind most of them remain unknown.”