Lawbreakers
I remember, some time in mid 80s, I noticed a news item in the corner of a daily newspaper which read "The traffic police have banned use of tinted glass in the cars". I immediately decided to remove my car's tinted sheet from the windows. The very next day or only a day after, while I was on my way to garage to do the job, I was intercepted near Kalyanpur by a traffic sergeant. He stopped my car, sidelined it and told me that I had violated the government order. I tried to convince him that I was on my way to get it done. He didn't care and started to write something in his book. However, after a compromise he released my car. I removed the tinted sheets from my car but many did not. After a few days the rule was ineffective because the ministers and high-ups were using tinted glasses in their cars.
In Bangladesh such rules make-and-break are regular affairs. I do not want to put any more examples but one. A few days earlier I heard from my relatives in Dhaka that the traffic police in Dhaka have installed cctv in the street corners to catch the traffic rule offenders and punish them. I also heard that they have put loud speakers and are advising the drivers to follow lanes and crossings as per their new instructions.
Today, they are no more there and the Bangladeshi free-hand drivers have again returned to their usual practices.
Not only traffic rules, all rules and laws are made but none follows. Policies in education, agriculture, electricity, courts orders, timely attendance in offices, etc. are not exceptions.
Some rules are really required to be introduced to regularise anomalies but in Bangladesh none is used to abide by the rules. There is no cue for big ones, there is no waiting in the cue at lifts for sirs, the hearing of cases of known one is ahead of other files and so many.
If only one rule, the traffic rule could be enforced firmly, there could not have been so much traffic jams or congestions in Dhaka.
Recently, the wife of California governor was sued by the police for talking over her cell phone while driving. The British Prime Minister Tony Blair's wife was caught for violating a small traffic rule. These are just small examples how the laws and rules are compulsory for everyone to abide by in the outside world.
When will we learn to make and abide by the rules in Bangladesh??
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