Corruption is everything, no discipline on road transport

DESPITE the youth movement for the demand of safe roads in Dhaka and the subsequent enactment of the Road Transport Act 2018 in parliament, the chaotic situation on roads still dominates. The unprecedented youth movement has failed to fix the long-prevailing causes of road accidents — the plying of unfit vehicles and over speeding, driving without training and proper documents, jaywalking and roadside bazaars, the breaching of traffic rules, grabbing footpaths, dilapidated roads and a lack of implementation of law. A national daily reported that buses are picking up and dropping off passengers in the middle of the streets as rickshaws wait for passengers and block part of the busy intersection. People’s awareness in following traffic rules is very poor as most pedestrians jaywalk despite the close proximity of zebra crossings and footbridges.
Members of Rover Scouts, Girl Guides, Red Crescent and other organizations had forced pedestrians and transport workers to obey traffic rules during the month-long traffic rules awareness campaign. But the utter lack of discipline came back after they left. But police took no visible steps to evict them. Many people are seen crossing the roads right under footbridges while policemen working there do not stop them. During the campaign, police filed around 1.7 lakh cases for traffic violations and realized around Tk 14 crore in fines. But at the end of the campaign, DMP Commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia on Sunday said sincerity of police to bring discipline in the streets could not be successful until people stop violating traffic rules.
Bringing discipline in roads must involve the concatenation of multipronged attempts. The government must make the pathways open by clearing off shops, construction materials, police box or pillars of footbridges, set zebra crossings, set separate lanes for low-speedy vehicles and provide adequate numbers of bus stoppage by bringing all public buses under 4-5 companies and introducing metro and monorail.
Forget punishment under law, because laws are to be abused for corruption to flourish.