Tempo tantrum

Great novelist Humayun Ahmed in one of his “Himu” novels had termed the “tempo” (a customised public auto-rickshaw that plies through Dhaka and other cities) a blessing for Dhaka’s roads. The tempo can cover a lot of distance, moves fast and most importantly, it provides the passengers with the opportunity to travel while sitting down – a rare facility to be availed by a public commuter in this city. Being almost a regular commuter on tempos, I fully agree with Humayun Ahmed’s take on this wonderful mode of transportation. However, there is much that can be added to these observations, both positive and negative. Firstly, tempo drivers and helpers are great navigators. They don’t need any GPS or other navigation system to guide them around. They also tend to have a clear idea of current traffic conditions - the when, where and for how long the traffic congestion is most likely to last - are all engraved like a mind map in them. This knowledge is what makes these tempos such a great mode of transport – you can trust your driver to take you on age-old driving routes or figure out a new one.Navigating the tricky terrains of DhakaHowever, there are more obstacles than just traffic on the labyrinth of roads in Dhaka. For example, police checkpoints. Only last week, the traffic police along with Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) officials set up checkpoints at different parts of Dhanmondi, Lalmatia and Mohammadpur to check the vehicles’ papers and drivers’ licenses. Most tempos (if not all) do not have the necessary papers, so they obviously couldn’t pass the check-posts. The tempo that I happened to be in at the time was stopped, and the vehicle’s ignition key was taken away. That, however, was no problem, thanks to the inventive mind of the tempo driver. He used a screwdriver to turn on the ignition in no time, and before we knew it, he was happily chatting away about the incident to another fellow driver! I only got to know because our driver was perfectly happy to stop with a vehicle full of passengers in the middle of the road when he spotted a tempo comrade. It’s totally normal to do this –  in fact it is when the tempo drivers are chit-chatting, often in their own dialect, that they are able to share the news of traffic congestion wherever their travels had taken them for the day. What happened afterwards was magical. My tempo driver suddenly veered into a left turn, spotted a free alley and took us into its depths, made a few turns and snaked his way through the traffic and voilà! We managed to avoid all the check-posts in place. If I were alone I would have thought some of those alleys are dead ends, so it is reassuring to have these seasoned navigators at the helm of local tempos.Integral but illegalMy second observation is a mathematical one. I can’t help but note that one has to look at it from a philosophical perspective. It starts with simple arithmetic. If the combined age of the tempo driver and helper is 24 and if the driver’s age is 16, what is the age of the helper? The answer is simple - eight. According to interviews I conducted with over a hundred drivers and helpers over two years, the average age of a tempo driver is 16 years, and the average age of the helper tends to be around eight years old. Both tempo drivers and helpers tend to be too young to have a legal license, which is why so few of them have their papers in order and hence, they are forced to avoid check-posts like the plague. The tempo business is indeed very strange. The owners employ underaged drivers so that they can maximise their profits by paying minimum wages. A tempo that travels the Jhigatola to Farmgate route can make around Tk220 per ride. Usually, one tempo can make that trip for 12-15 times a day, depending on traffic. However, from each of these trips, the driver gets a meagre Tk35-50, and the helper gets even worse – only Tk10-20 per trip. He also gets one more benefit though – driving lessons, so that one day, he too can grow up to do the same. There are no formal driving tests, only this sort of informal apprenticeship. This is how the tempo business is running, and has turned into a never-ending cycle. According to BRTA director Saiful Haque, the transport regulators are aware of the fact that most tempos do not have a fitness certificate, and that most drivers do not have a license. “This is the most informal mode of vehicles in Dhaka and other places across the country. We have estimated that around 2,400 tempos are travelling on Dhaka roads, ferrying nearly 1.8 lac passengers on a daily basis,” he said. Haque also added that BRTA has conducted several drives to stop this. “But after some time, they always end up going back to the roads,” he admitted. However, he mentioned that the accident rate with tempos is relatively lower compared to other vehicles. This leads us to the undeniable fact that although underaged and without training, tempo drivers are an integral part of urban traffic, and are doing their best to ferry the busy people of the city from one point to another. On that note, happy tempo riding to you all!