BANGLADESH observed World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims on November 19 amid continued road fatalities. At least three people were killed and four others were injured in road accidents in Bogura and Dinajpur on November 18. Earlier on November 7, two former student leaders of the Bangladesh Student Federation were killed when a goods-laden truck ran over them in Dhaka. In another accident on the same day, seven people were killed in a collision between a bus and a CNG-run autorickshaw in Chattogram. Meanwhile, the Bangladesh Passengers Welfare Association reported 437 deaths and 681 injuries in 429 road accidents across the country in October. In 2022, according to the Road Safety Foundation, at least 7,713 people were killed in 6,829 road crashes. The number of deaths was 22.74 per cent higher, and the number of accidents was 27.14 per cent higher than those in 2021. The prevailing scenario clearly indicates that the road safety situation is progressively declining with no effective plan to bring some order to the public transport sector.

It is clearly evident that infrastructural development, such as the construction of four-lane highways or flyovers, will not automatically ensure road safety. On July 22, in one of the deadliest accidents of the year in Jhalakathi, the driver on board did not have a license to drive a heavy vehicle. The failure to enforce transport rules and regulations is primarily responsible for the high fatalities. In June 2021, the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority issued 37.63 lakh driving licences against 47.76 lakh registered vehicles, indicating that 10.13 lakh vehicles are being run by unlicensed drivers. Instead of improving its training capacity and enforcing licensing rules to accommodate unskilled drivers, the government has repeatedly given into the pressure from transport owners and worker federations. In August 2018, the road transport authority granted a concession to the driving licence rules, allowing professional drivers to run vehicles with less experience and technical knowledge than usually required. Since then, the concession has been renewed at least eight times. Time and again, passengers’ rights advocates raised their concerns about the conflict of interest of lawmakers with direct stakes in the transport sector. There are two organisations — Bangladesh Road Transport Owner’s Association and the Bangladesh Sarak Paribahan Sramik Federation — that control the road transport sector and are led by lawmakers. Therefore, the government appears more interested in being in the good books of transport owners and workers than making much-needed structural changes in the sector.

It is now public knowledge that the public transport sector is by far the most corrupt and unregulated sector, and the influence of transport owners in policymaking is mainly responsible for the situation. Abandoning the reported bias towards the transport owners and workers associations, the government must sincerely address the issue of conflict of interest by reconsidering the involvement of lawmakers in policymaking, who have a direct stake in the transport sector.