A biker comes from nowhere, hits a young boy and speeds away, without stopping to see if any harm has come to the boy that he ran over.
This is exactly what happened in Mogbazar the other day. A boy was walking with his mother on a footpath when a biker intruded into the space meant for pedestrians, and hit him. And all this happened in the presence of a traffic police officer, who was a mute spectator to the event.
Pedestrians have been suffering from this nuisance for a long time now as even a High Court directive has not been able to keep the bikers off the footpaths.
In March last year, the court asked the government to take measures to ensure that motorcycles and other vehicles do not encroach on footpaths and walkways in the capital. The order has clearly fallen on deaf ears.
According to a report by the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA), there were about 400 fatal vehicle-pedestrian collisions in the city in 2012, which translates into one collision every 25 hours.
“The number of pedestrian fatalities in the city is not surprising,” Prof Tanvir Hassan, director of the Accident Research Institute at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) told the Dhaka Tribune.
“You don’t have to be a genius to know how dangerous city streets have become for pedestrians these days; their condition is the most vulnerable and neglected. The pavements have little space for pedestrians who have to constantly dodge hawkers, illegally parked vehicles, cable poles and police boxes,” he added.
Dr Asoke Kumar Saha, an associate professor at Jagannath University, said most of the accidents occurring due to vehicles taking over the footpaths go unreported unless something fatal happens.
However, he added, even a minor accident can have devastating effects on the disabled and elderly people, who lack the ability to cope with anything sudden and out of the ordinary. Children might overreact when startled or panicked.
Last week, five-year-old Orpita was nearly run over by a car in Mohammadpur. Startled by the sudden, deafening sound of an electric generator on the pavement, she jumped onto the street and was almost hit by a car. “Thanks to the Almighty, the driver brought to the car to a halt just in time,” said Lina Nahida, the girl’s mother.
Instead of admitting that it is a mistake to put out generators on the pavements, the shop owners scolded Orpita for walking so close to a generator.
“Pavements are meant for pedestrians’ use only, but shop owners placing generators there behave as if they own the place and consider pedestrian movement as a trespass,” Lina added.
Almost three out of five persons out on the streets are pedestrians using the footpaths and the walkways. To accommodate this foot traffic, there are only 163 kilometres of pavements in the city compared with the 2,290-km stretch of roads for vehicles.
Additionally, a significant portion of the pavements was being used as extensions for shops, parking lots, construction sites and lanes for bike riders, further reducing the space available for the pedestrians.
“By definition, footpaths are made for pedestrians only. Any sort of vehicular movement there can put lives at risk,” said Mohammad Shamsul Haque of BUET.
He further said laws that prohibit riding bikes or cars and illegal encroachments on pavements are not enforced regularly. Although Dhaka City Corporation sometimes conducts eviction drives to push away the trespassers from the pavements, they quickly reappear in the absence of follow-up measures.
Shamsul stressed upon pedestrian-friendly urban planning, saying the government should focus on both expansion of roads and diverse modes of transport, as well as implementation of traffic rules.
