My son, a ninth grader, told me that things were not right in Bangladesh. He simply stared at me, asking: “What’s wrong with us, papa?” I had no answer to offer. What he had asked me wasn’t without essence, however. He had reasons to be upset, to be concerned about his future in this country.
Within just a few days, we have had sad news of horrific road accidents pouring in from all directions. We are perpetually coiled in fear of learning about someone’s tragic demise in the most inhumane and miserable manner possible.
Dhaka is now a death zone, where monsters roam around, waiting to crush us under their wheels.
We’ve learned with utter shock of the painful death of Zaglul bhai while he was getting off a bus – it wasn’t a fault that he chose to travel via bus. The next morning, a university student was crushed between two buses – it wasn’t a fault that he had set-off for his workplace.
All the way in Kushtia, yet another student, Titu, was crushed under the wheels of a speeding bus inside the Islamic University campus. The anger and frustration of Titu’s fellow students were something to behold, with 35 buses being destroyed and the university being closed sine die.
These are only a few of the incidents which were reported. During this time, many other such tragedies must have occurred across the country which remain unreported – killings, suicides, deaths by starvation, torture, violence, and what have you. While in the calm atmosphere of a celebration of classical music, we witnessed the flight of our national pride, Qayyum Chowdhury, to the hereafter. At least he died standing.
How do we define the deaths caused by reckless drivers? Who is responsible? Don’t we all stand accused? Such reckless driving, and the complicity of the BRTA staff in abundantly supplying fake licenses, has been in practice for decades.
Despite numerous reports pertaining to serious allegations against the officials and staff of the BRTA, and the near regular loss of life on the highways and within the towns, nothing is being done to rein in on the criminal practices by the BRTA and its stooges.
The business sector (especially the transport sector) has established that “all’s fair in the transport business” as a fact. The progenitors of the reckless world of transport workers are the transport owners – creating a flawed system of specific departments and broken traffic management.
Our transport businesses are run in a peculiar fashion and on a unique model. The owners rent out vehicles to a party at a fixed amount to be deposited at the end of the day. That amount is reportedly always on the high end. The party hiring the vehicle from the owner(s) has bags of complaints against the owners when they come to know about the undue fares from hapless commuters.
Every private vehicle for public service (buses, trucks, human-haulers, auto three-wheelers, rickshaws, etc) is hired from its owner, so the operating party has to hurry things up to meet the owner’s demands and top it off with a handsome profit for themselves.
The fares they tend to charge are always high, and the conductors and drivers give you a million reasons for the unfair sums they charge. Operators of the CNG-run three wheelers will charge anything that comes to their minds. Take it or leave it. It’s the same case for tempos. They try to make as many trips as possible throughout the day to meet the rent being charged by the owner and also pocket a profit for themselves.
More trips means more money – for this reason they take on each other on the streets, driving like mad men, risking the lives of commuters and pedestrians, and all this right under the noses of the traffic police. Apart from the fares, the uncivilised way in which transport workers treat their passengers is indescribable.
The most damning part is the way they flout the rules of the road, disregarding the safety of commuters and pedestrians. We have seen passengers being thrown off running buses or being beaten up by rogue transport monsters for reasons which go beyond one’s comprehension.
Recklessness is not only present in their driving, it is within every transport worker and their mentors. We are practically at the mercy of these heinous monsters, left to watch how we all fall one by one. Our conscience remains unmoved.
It’s time our “Rip Van Winkle law enforcers” woke up and witnessed the state of affairs. It’s also time that the administration, civil bodies, trade union leaders, students, and people from all walks of life “get reckless” themselves in stopping this killer fraternity known as transport workers. A national movement for safety on the roads is the need of the hour.
