Everyone needs to act responsible to contain road accidents

What causes the road accidents? Answering this question in a sentence is next to impossible. And different people will answer that differently.

To put it in a simple way – reckless driving is not the only reason for these road accidents. There are many other causes, one of them being mindless road crossing of the pedestrians. In all the civilized societies, the cars slow down when they see people on the zebra crossing. However, the drivers in our country do not care much. And the pedestrians, too, prefer to cross the road as per their wish, without caring the least about their safety. Every year, we hear the slogan ‘Cross the road on the zebra crossing’ during the traffic week, but the pedestrians do not bother. They prefer to cross the roads risking their lives.

Nine people, including a woman and her son, were killed in different places across the country on Sunday. Death of people in road accidents have become a regular phenomenon. Yet we can neither stop reckless driving nor wanton crossing of roads of the pedestrians. The government is not doing their best either, which is proved by the time it is taking to publish a gazette regarding the road safety act.

A news published in Prothom Alo on Monday tells us that the road safety act was formulated on 8 October in 2018 and a gazette was to be published that year. However, it has been six months but that is not happening. After a writ petition was filed, the court asked why the gazette would not be published and why the inactivity on the government’s part will not be termed ‘illegal’. The authorities have been asked to reply in two weeks.

It is a mystery why the government is taking so much time to publish this gazette. Everyone needs to work in union to contain road accidents. But all the parties seem indifferent. The government, the drivers and the pedestrians – all need to act responsibly to put an end to this epidemic named road accident.