Editorial
Highway tragedy, again
The root causes need addressing
WITH the death of another youngster on Tuesday in a road mishap in Bogra, the issue of highway safety has once again come to the fore. And as is usual in such cases, an angry mob burnt down the killer truck, vandalised roadside shops, put up a barricade on the Bogra-Rangpur highway paralysing road traffic for about four and a quarter of an hour until the police intervened to calm down the crowd and restore normality in the area.
The too familiar sequel to such road mishaps notwithstanding, we disapprove of the way in which the public who witnessed the accident and resorted to widespread rampage and vandalism in protest. And as in every other case, intervention by the police or administration brought the stalemate on the roads to an end. But this certainly should not be the ideal way to face the problem of road mishaps whose number is on the increase with attending violent outbursts of the public. It is important that the root causes lying behind these road accidents are seriously looked into and duly addressed.
The reasons for which the angry locals resorted to vandalism and kept the highway under their control appeared to be somewhat different in the Bogra case. For rather than just pouring their anger on the driver who was apparently responsible for that particular mishap, their demands pointed to the factors that led to the accident.
In this particular case, quite clearly the reckless driver as well as the absence of road-breakers and narrowing of the roads due to the presence of unauthorised shops was the immediate reasons behind the accident. In other cases, one would find lack of proper observation of traffic laws by drivers, many of whom are either poorly trained or have no training to drive the vehicle. Faulty road design, lack of road maintenance, unfit and un-roadworthy vehicles, absence of patrol on the highways, sitting of temporary bazaars on the roads and so on also often contribute to road tragedies. These are again linked to corruption, inefficiencies, mismanagement and irregularities in the government offices that are supposed to look after these affairs. And all these issues have to be addressed in earnest, if the government wants to establish order and discipline on the roads. Otherwise there will be no end to the deaths on the road and angry mob syndrome that goes with them.
Premature death of a student from a poor rural background due to reckless driving is a matter of great sorrow and we sympathise with the family thus bereft of their beloved one. In the same breath, we call upon the government to take urgent steps to address the root causes of such tragedies.
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