So many deaths on roads

With Eid-ul-Azha barely ten days away, we are once again confronted with raw data of people dying on our roads. According to figures published in a leading Bangla daily, 1,810 people have died due to road accidents over the last 189 days. That puts the number of people dying at 10 persons per day on average! Our paper has been highlighting the plight of passengers over the years, especially during the Eid festivities when this number multiplies manifold as reckless bus drivers start competing with one another to reach destinations faster. Faulty roads contribute to the accidents.

Excessive speeding of heavy vehicles on the country's highways has not decreased, and with little by way of legal measures to stop unskilled drivers being at the helm of large transports like buses, no one can tell what the consequences would be during the coming Eid festivity. We have never quite understood the apathy of the authorities to take measures to stop these avoidable deaths. The spate of accidents has much to do with the watered down proposed Road Transport Act that has no serious penalty for fatal accidents. When an 8th grader is deemed fit to drive an inter-district bus and where the driver can, literally, get away with murder, we have to be resigned to the fact that such accidents will continue to happen and drivers will act with impunity, unless quick measures are taken to rectify the faulty roads and the proposed toothless Road Transport Act is amended to include harsher penalties for fatal accidents.