Street Safety: a Bangladesh point of view
BANGLADESH has seen some phenomenal dissents as of late that raised numerous issues and worries that have to a great extent stayed unnoticed or unchecked until uncovered open by school and undergrads who have requested street wellbeing. It is the first run through in history that the legislature has made the right course of move and has brought proprietors of transports in charge of the passing of two understudies to equity notwithstanding the drivers concerned. It has frequently been the situation that in case of a mischance, the group gets hold of drivers and hardheartedly beat them up and harm vehicles to vent their outrage. The story tragically closes there and no administration or administrative experts ever require any genuine push to research and address the issues centring on street mishaps.
There are three conditions to street wellbeing. The first is the state of streets, the second is the state of vehicles and the third is the state of drivers.
Safe streets are reliant on organizers, specialists and contractual workers. A large portion of the streets in Bangladesh are not appropriately made arrangements for either absence of abilities or different thought processes. Most organizers who frequently put on a show to be organizers only from time to time have the required information of building streets or roadways. One just needs to take a study of Dhaka– Aricha street and the hazardous wanders aimlessly that this street takes making most parts of the street perilous. Usually troublesome for speeding vehicles, especially over-burden and additionally substandard minibusses, to keep up control at these purposes of perilous street bends. It took numerous years and misfortunes of numerous lives for the experts worried to understand the wrongs and as an essential security measure, street dividers have been put at some dangerous street bends to limit head-on impacts.
The great case of the wretched arranging is reflected in the flyover before the Sonargaon Hotel at Kawran Bazar that must be incompletely pulled down to be modified and still it has neglected to fill the need. It has rather turned into a bottleneck like the flyover at Bijoy Sarani, ordinarily alluded to as the Rangs flyover. Both the flyovers ought to have been reached out to go crosswise over Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue with the first at Sonargaon Hotel to connect Panthapath and the second one at Rangs to interface Bijoy Sarani to encourage continuous movement stream. The pundits tell that these wrecks are the result of both absence of learning and a greater amount of debasement. The more wreckage they make, the more is the spending and higher the wage of the plot comprising of lawmakers, organizers, architects and temporary workers.
Street development should be administered by qualified designers and their capabilities end up sketchy in Bangladesh on the off chance that one just audits the state of streets only a couple of days after the culmination of street development, extension or repair. This is an intriguing situation that specialists are only from time to time found at building destinations rather they invest the majority of their energy, if not whole time, sitting in aerated and cooled workplaces. It is either their absence of abilities or information of building compounded by defilement that gives any framework a chance to extend to wind up in a poor state while the spending continues expanding. It is claimed that specialists grasp a nice looking offer of the development spending plan for keeping their eyes close knowing very well indeed that development or repairs of streets don't consent to the slightest or total least standard.
The issue that necessities consideration is the cost of building streets. It is accounted for to be the most elevated on the planet while the workmanship or quality or state of the streets is the most noticeably awful on the planet. As per a World Bank report, Bangladesh's spending on every kilometer of track is higher than that in China and India. Its graph demonstrated that every kilometer of extension chip away at the Dhaka– Sylhet Highway cost $7 million. For the Dhaka– Mawa street, it was $11.9 million a kilometer and $2.5 million for the Dhaka– Chittagong Highway. The extension work of the Dhaka-Mymensingh Highway cost $2.5 million a kilometer. Be that as it may, in India, developing one kilometer of a four-path street cost $1.1 million to $1.3 million, including land obtaining. In China, the figure was $1.3 million to $1.6 million. In Europe, the cost for every kilometer of four-path street was $3.5 million while the change of a two-path street to four was $2.5 million.
Bangladesh's streets are among the most exceedingly terrible in Asia, as indicated by the World Economic Forum. As per the discoveries, it positioned at 113 among the Asian nations for street quality, just in front of Nepal. Singapore is positioned at the best in Asia and second comprehensively as far as street foundation. It is trailed by Japan and Taiwan which have similarly all around kept up streets positioned 5 and 11 separately. South Korea and Malaysia positioned 14 and 20 individually additionally figure in the nations with best streets in Asia. China is positioned 39 on the planet. It has great streets in view of the rising economy and developing advancement. China has the longest thruway on the planet extending 85,000 kilometers. Brunei and Sri Lanka rank superior to other south Asian nations. The state of Indian streets is showing signs of improvement with the nation positioned 51, in front of Thailand and Pakistan at 60 and 77 individually. Bhutan positioned 80 needs to build up the street foundation significantly. It is trailed by Vietnam and Laos that have likewise not put much in creating street framework to make voyaging simple around the nation. Cambodia, positioned 93, has sporadic street advancement in both rustic and urban regions. The Philippines' streets are less created contrasted and those of other East Asian nations. It is trailed by Mongolia at 109 and Bangladesh at 113.
The reports plainly mirror the unprecedented cost of debasement in the nation. With minimal effort of living and low wages contrasted and most nations, one would expect the cost ought to in any event be lower than Europe, if not India and China. It is obvious to the point that the nature of streets isn't practically identical to that of those nations, even in the wake of spending the most elevated on the planet. It is about time the issue was gone to and researched for responsibility and straightforwardness in the spending of citizens' cash. It doesn't require space or advanced science to survey and compute the real cost of building every kilometer of street in Bangladesh.
A nearby investigation of street mischances will uncover that a couple of mishaps were caused by whole deal transports and a large portion of the mishaps have been caused by the supposed minibusses, trucks and vehicles of unrecognized shapes and sizes. The issue is the quality and the transports that utilize whole deals like Dhaka– Chittagong or Dhaka– Khulna are in consistence with street wellbeing benchmarks and proprietors guarantee that these transports are controlled by exceedingly proficient drivers so their interests in the vehicle segment does not wind up in mishaps. In any case, the nearby transports, minibusses or the kind of anonymous or unrecognized vehicles frequently called 'human haulers' are only a dishonorable show of vehicles on Bangladesh streets and a despicable picture of administrative body and law implementation. I question if any nation in world will enable such vehicles to utilize their streets.
The real worry for these vehicles is it isn't the vehicles that are unroadworthy yet it is the drivers they utilize who are underage, unfit and unlicensed. It fills proprietors two needs — right off the bat, they pay nearly peanuts in compensation and, besides, they can without much of a stretch control this immense number of inadequate drivers as negotiating advantages with government. The resultant condition is grave as in it has encouraged the development of a scheme among proprietors, government officials, administrative bodies, law masters, political activists and poor specialists with the last at the less than desirable end for any outcome. The current and creating laws are unfair to the point that it recommends discipline for drivers yet stays quiet on the commitments, duties and liabilities of proprietors or administrative bodies who have in any case encouraged the risky street travel and enabled inadequate vehicles to utilize the streets and put the poor unfit drivers or specialists in charge of the unfit vehicles.
Taking everything into account, it tends to be decently outlined that it is the proprietors and administrative bodies, including law authorities, that should be restrained and ought to be the first to be conveyed to equity before discipline is allotted to poor drivers in the event that we truly need to perceive any conceivable change in street wellbeing. The drivers will naturally enhance themselves if proprietors don't utilize untalented drivers, administrative bodies don't issue counterfeit licenses and the law implements do their checking appropriately to kill risky vehicles and unfit drivers.