Speakers at a Seminar: Unlicensed drivers and unfit vehicles cause massive road crush

Staff Reporter :
Information and Broadcasting Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud on Monday said unlicensed drivers and unfit vehicles caused massive road crush in the country.
“Population have increased, vehicles also so the number of road accidents are also occurred. But it is notable that unlicensed drivers and unfit vehicles are the major causes of the dreadful road accidents in our country,” the Minister said while addressing as the Chief Guest at a seminar titled ‘Road Safety Reporting’ at Tathya Bhaban in Circuit House Road in the capital.
National Institute of Mass Communication (NIMC) organised the seminar. The Minister said, motor drivers organisations and vehicle owners associations always stand against any legal actions of road crashes which should be shunned.
Replying to queries from reporters, Dr. Hasan Mahmud said, “It is natural for BNP to become afraid of polls. Because, the party under the leadership of Begum Khaleda Zia got only 29 seats among 300 in 2008 elections even after applying its highest strength. Later, winning a by-election, they crossed 30 seats”.
“In 2014, BNP had boycotted elections and in 2018 elections, BNP joined elections after forging an alliance of many parties and ‘hiring’ Dr Kamal Hossain but got only seven seats including woman seat,” the Minister said.
The AL Joint General Secretary said whenever BNP holds political programmes either they are locked into infighting or makes chaos with police.
Addressing the seminar, the minister said a road accident doesn’t only kills a person or makes him or her paralyzed rather it kills an entire family or makes paralyzed.
 He underscored the need for taking up concerted efforts by transport owners, drivers, workers, law enforcement agencies, and people to stop road accidents.
The minister urged the electronic media to air consciousness-raising advertisement to this end at their own initiative.
Experts in the seminar said that the trend of not following the traffic rules, drag addictions among the drivers, restless driving, reckless driving are the major reasons of road accidents which claimed huge fatalities in the country.
They pointed to the Sunday’s massive road crash in Dhaka-Khulna highway in Madaripur which claimed more than 20 lives. Experts said that 6829 accidents took place in 2022 which caused7713 deaths and 12615 injuries. Meanwhile, traffic police and Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) realised Tk 300 crore from the vehicles as fines due to breaching traffic rules in the road.
 NIMC Director General Faizul Haque chaired the seminar while Additional Secretary Md Faruque Ahmed addressed it as the Special Guest and Road Safety Foundation Chairman Professor Dr A I Mahbub Uddin Ahmed, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) Accident Research Institute’s Professor Dr Mohammad Mahbub Alam Talukder, News Agency UNB’s Advisory Editor Farid Hossain, Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) Director (Road Safety) Sheikh Mohammad Mahbub-e-Rabbani, Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD) Programme Manager Nabeel Tirmazi, NIMC Director Dr Md Maruf Nawaz and NIMC Deputy Director Mohammed Abu Sadique addressed the seminar.
A total of 20 journalists took part in the seminar which was arranged with the association of World Health Organisation (WHO) and AIBD.