Road safety concerns centring on Eid are nothing unusual, as the movement of people and motorised vehicles goes up remarkably during pre-and post-festival days. Around the last Eid vacation, within just 14 days, there were 283 road accidents, leaving approximately 400 dead and 1,500 injured. In the days leading up to Eid-ul-Azha in 2021, at least 224 people were killed and 866 injured in 203 accidents. There are many accidents which aren’t even documented.
Between 2.0 and 2.5 million motorbikes are likely to ply the country’s highways during the Eid festival days. Motorbikes are likely to engage in 1.2 million trips from Dhaka to its adjoining districts. Motorbikes, which have proliferated in recent years, were responsible for half of the road casualties during the Eid days in 2021. The presence of more motorcycles and easy bikes, thus, raises the chances of increased road accidents during the upcoming Eid celebration. The reasons behind the plying of a huge number of motorbikes and other locally made motorised vehicles during the pre-Eid days are not that difficult to locate. Home-bound people are forced to avail of ridesharing services because of the shortage of passenger buses, train tickets and long tailbacks on highways. Motorbikes manage to reach destinations by bypassing all the obstacles on the roads, even though a swarm of motor and easy-bikes contribute to the formation of long tailbacks on roads and highways.
Understandably, the government cannot stop issuing licences to new motorbikes. But it surely can regulate those, if it desires so. The very thought of the traffic situation, be it in Dhaka or outside, generates a chaotic picture of the extreme kind. Such chaos is nothing unexpected when the government adopts new laws after many years to ensure smooth transportation, but shies away from its enforcement under threat from vested quarters. It is high time the government started disciplining the transport sector with a heavy hand. Otherwise, the country would have to pay an enormous cost in the coming days.