Reckless and callous driving of rundown city-service buses is an everyday hazard for Dhaka dwellers and commuters and with law enforcement agencies not being strict enough, it puts people’s lives and safety at risk.
A large number of such bus and minibus drivers do not even have driving licenses or have fake ones. They drive at will, stop anywhere they want to and change lanes with no regard whatsoever for other vehicles.
They often indulge in dangerous competitions with other drivers to get more passengers. They endanger the lives of motorists, pedestrians and the passengers they carry.
Sometimes, reckless driving goes on in front of police officials on duty.
Retired Pubali Bank assistant general manager Syed Shafiqul Ahmed died in front of GPO on January 24. He was travelling from Mohammadpur Town Hall by a bus and as he was about to get down in front of the GPO the bus pulled away. Shafiqul fell and his head struck the pavement. He died on the spot.
This is just one of many similar incidents of rowdy driving of buses.
A large number of these vehicles are not road worthy. Many of the buses that ply the city streets do not even have indicators, taillights, or headlights but they do usually have broken windscreens or shattered windows, shabby seats and dents and scrapes all over their body. Some are seen with loose body parts dangling dangerously as they manoeuvre through traffic. Some have smudged, apparently deliberately, number plates to make it easier to avoid being caught after a hit-and-run.
Prof Md Shamsul Hoque, director of Accident Research Institute at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, said buses are the most important part of public transport. “But the public buses in our country do not have any attributes of being so, mainly because of faulty planning,” he said.
Minibuses, as they are easily manoeuvrable, are the most erratic, he said. Authorities allow different companies under fragmented ownership to operate on a particular route and the operators indulge in competition to make more money with as many trips as possible with each bus ignoring people’s safety, he said.
“Even a company with only a few buses get route permit,” he said, adding, “A particular route must be given to a single operator with adequate number of buses in its fleet to satisfy the transport need of the public.”
A total of 380 deaths occur on the streets of the capital every year due to accidents, for which buses, particularly minibuses, are responsible in one way or the other.
Of the 380 deaths, 75 percent are pedestrians.
Accidents caused by buses and trucks take the figure to around 3,700 across the country, he said.
Quoting Bangladesh Road Transport Authority high officials, Prof Md Shamsul Hoque said 50 to 70 percent licences the drivers hold are fake.
Deputy Commissioner (traffic west) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Selim Md Jahangir said they prosecuted 2,704 bus drivers in January in the west zone alone in connection with picking passengers at unauthorised places.
“I myself conducted a random seizure of driving licences in the last week of January and seized 92 licences,” he said, adding, “To my shock, only six of them turned out to be genuine.”
A total of 3,133 drivers were prosecuted in connection with lane-rules violation in the west zone during the same period.
The problem of continued rowdy bus driving does not lie only with the police, he said, adding that there are other agencies like Bangladesh Road Transport Authority who are responsible.
Interestingly, DMP Commissioner AKM Shahidul Hoque has said they issued a deadline for fake driving-licence holders to obtain licences by March 31.
“We will go for legal action after the deadline,” he said.
Khandakar Rafiqul Hossain Kajal, president of Association of Bus Companies (ABC), said indiscipline and rowdiness exist in the bus-service sector due to various interest groups. “Unless and until extortion is tackled, rowdiness in the sector will not stop,” he said.
The ABC once took an initiative to recruit authentic drivers and conductors but failed as the vested quarter opposed it, he claimed.
“There are many examples of bus drivers maiming or killing people through callous driving,” he said.
He said 60 percent of the driving licences are fakes but they could not take actions against those bus drivers due to a dearth of drivers.
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