Road accident laws must not be relaxed

The high rate of road accident fatalities in Bangladesh is alarming. The demand for safe roads has been continuing for long. This culminated into a full blown movement in July last year, when students broke out in angry protest following two college students being killed by a bus on Airport Road in the capital city.

Following this public demand for safe roads, the road transport act was amended in September that year, with various clauses added to the law, including an increase in the penalty for those responsible for road accidents. The government made all sorts of commitments to ensure road safety.

However, the amended law is not being implemented. If that was so, why was it even amended in the first place? Was it just to quell the students’ agitation against road accidents?

It had been heard that the law did not come into effect because of opposition from the road transport owners and workers.

The students’ demand for safe roads was justified and supported by all. The movement was forceful and strong because the authorities had simply been turning a blind eye to the continuous parade of road accident deaths. The insensitivity of certain quarters made matters worse. While the entire nation mourned the death of the two young students killed by an irresponsible driver who ran them over on the pavement, the shipping minister Shahjahan Khan’s smirk simply added fuel to the fire.

That smirk has returned to people’s minds, now that the home minister has indicated that the road transport law may revert to its original lenient stance, under pressure of road transport owners and workers. It seems as if the government is insensitive to the continuous road accidents which snatch away the lives of thousands every year.

We ask the government, are the interests of the road transport owners and workers more important that the interests of the people of the nation? Why should their interests be given higher priority that national interests?

The transport owners and workers even prevented implementation of the original law when it came to punishing these vile offenders. Now the pressure has been increased to let the killers on the road get away with their offences. The government is buckling under pressure and pushing aside public interests. We call upon the policy makers to change this stance. Any move to amend the law again in order to soften the punishment against the offenders is reprehensible and unacceptable.