Reckless driving
May I make a modest suggestion to help in the slow and essential process of holding the owners and drivers of vehicles accountable for how they are driven? In the UK, the backs of many trucks, buses and other vehicles on the road display a telephone number and a notice 'Driven well? If not, report to....' After all, bad driving not only threatens life and limbs but the profits of a business…
Recently, while my car was stationery and waiting to turn right on Kamal Attaturk Avenue, a school 'van' crashed into it whose driver, in a line of such 'vans', had decided to overtake the one in front, ending up far too far over on the right of the road. Considering his precious cargo of children, I considered the school, whose name was on the side, was worthy of a visit.
Seated in the Principal's office, I discovered, to my surprise, that 'it was nothing to do with them' as the person who ran this little transport business was independent. “But they are YOUR children!” I protested. Later, my driver (a young man of initiative) marched in with the offending 'van' driver whom he had discovered outside the school - so I was at least able to make sure they knew who the offender was. But what was the name of the school doing on the side of the 'van'? It should have been the name of the proprietor of the 'van' business who was, presumably, making money out of the parents of these children but doing so, secure from critical feedback!
Encouraging people in this non-complaining culture to do something about dangerous driving is going to take time. A lot of people have not registered that fatalism is not sweet acceptance but a horrid pagan practice. On my Thursday bus-rides to Mymensingh from Haluaghat, for over two years, many was the time I praised a driver as I got off or, on the other hand, marched down the aisle and tapped him on the shoulder when he was driving like a maniac and then reported him at the other end. Although this is not common practice, I considered it far more shocking that men were sitting there, with wives and children beside them, saying nothing, even as we passed the wrecks of buses that had crashed, with terrible loss of life, on that far-too-smooth-and-lovely road. Surely, the reaction of passengers must be an incentive to drive nicely and a disincentive to drive badly...why should bad drivers keep their jobs? Everyone can play their part in this!
I applaud the proposed campaign to prevent driving licences being handed out like sweeties or not bothered with. I carry a nice little scar on my chin from a teenager who turned over my CNG by driving his parents' car into the side of it …
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