Vehicles on the wrong side

Traffic rules are one of the most fundamental guidelines of any modern civilisation, which if not followed will cause much of the city life to go awry, endangering lives, as is happening in Dhaka. In fact in this city, it seems that traffic rules are more honoured in the breach. The death of Joseph Barman, a 28-year-old school teacher, on Wednesday when the rickshaw he was riding was hit by a bus driving on the wrong side of the road, points to this dangerous habit. The bus was hired by the jute ministry and its driver thought nothing of zooming along the wrong side to avoid the traffic. On February 22, Riazuddin Topu, a university student, was similarly killed when a police-requisitioned van driving on the wrong side of the road, collided with Topu's motorbike.

For long, we have been highlighting the dangers of this illegal practice. To start with there were only a few flag cars of ministers, but soon other VIPs followed suit. And now any one remotely connected with high ups do not have qualms in breaching the rule of driving on the proper side, like the two above mentioned cases. And accidents are bound to happen and people will get killed or suffer grievous injury if vehicles suddenly go on the wrong side. The deaths of Joseph, Topu and many others, because some individuals think they are entitled to break the rules with impunity, should move the relevant quarters take action to stop this behaviour.

If this horrendous practice has to stop it should happen from the top. Not doing so means putting more precious lives at risk.