Make 3rd-party insurance mandatory for road crashes

A road safety organisation yesterday demanded amendment to the Road Transport Act-2018 to make third party insurance for road crash victims mandatory, and called for creating accident compensation fund immediately.

Road Safety Foundation, a non-government organisation, made the recommendations at a roundtable at Jatiya Press Club. It organised the discussion titled “Compensation for Road Accident Victims: Need of Road Safety Insurance and Separate Road Safety Fund.”

However, two top transport leaders, said it is a very lengthy process to get insurance claim after an accident, and emphasised on relaxing related procedures so that victims and vehicle owners can make the claims easily.

MS Siddiqui, vice-president of the foundation, said the Road Transport Act-2018 makes the insurance for third party (passengers and pedestrians) optional.

“The third-party insurance should be made compulsory and the law [Transport Act] should be amended accordingly,” he said.

He also urged the authorities to reconsider a section of the new act which said an accident compensation fund would be created -- with contributions from transport owners and workers aside from the government fund.

“The penalty realised from traffic violators should be main source of the fund. The government can allocate fund in the next budget,” he added.

In his keynote paper, Prof Moazzem Hossain, former director of Accident Research Institute at Buet, said instances of people getting insurance claim in Bangladesh is almost absent, and thus no statistics were available in this regard.

He said as per the existing law, a deceased victim’s family gets Tk 20,000 while an injured gets Tk 5,000-10,000 and Tk 50,000 for damage to property under third-party insurance scheme, which are insufficient.

Osman Ali, general secretary of Bangladesh Road Transport Workers Federation, said he has been in the transport sector for the last 38 years but could manage insurance claim in two-three cases, a trend that makes transport workers disinterested to make the insurance claims.

Romesh Chandra Ghosh, chairman of Bangladesh Bus-Truck Owners’ Association, said after any accident, they usually settle the issue through mutual understanding as police often ask them to do so.

He said the process to get an insurance claim is lengthy, as they have to show more than 20 to 25 documents. The process should be made easier, he added.

Prof Mizanur Rahman, former chairman of National Human Rights Commission, feared that the proposed fund for accident victims may be another source of corruption.

He said transport owners are responsible for compensating accident victims, and the government also a has a role here. However, no such fund should be created taking money from workers, he added.

Saidur Rahman, executive director of the foundation, and Mohammadi Khanam, managing director of Prime Insurance Company, spoke at the programme chaired by Prof AI Mahbub Uddin Ahmed.