Black spots of death

About 2,000 people have died since July 8, when Israel launched its attack in Gaza. The death toll in road accidents across Bangladesh between January to August this year is more than double that of the deaths in the most recent chapter of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

According to the statistics drawn up by Bangladesh Passenger Welfare Association on accounts of media reports, a total of 4,716 people were killed and 13,000 more were injured in road accidents during that time period.

According to official statistics, at least eight people die every day in road accidents in this country. However, the World Bank say the number is as high as 30. The World Health Organisation (WHO) reports that in 2012-13, a staggering 48 people died on an average in daily road accidents in Bangladesh. All these statistics can make us feel that we don’t need to wait for an attacker to kill us; just using the roads is a big threat!

The Accident Research Institute of BUET has identified that 35% of the deaths and 90% of the road accidents take place on the highways around the country, which accumulates a total of 3,580km. A total of 209 spots have been identified along the highways as accident-prone “black spots,” and these black spots scattered along the highway make up a total of 55km.

It is a matter of great regret that even though the list of these black spots was provided to the Communications Ministry in 2009, only 11 spots along the Dhaka-Aricha highway from the National Mausoleum in Nabinagar to Patua have been fixed so far in last six years.

It has been observed that the fixing of engineering and construction glitches at the 11 spots has significantly reduced the number of road accidents from the National Mausoleum in Nabinagar to Patua. According to the Roads and Highways Department (RHD), a total of 175 accidents occurred in 2011 along this stretch of the highway.

After the 11 spots were fixed, the number of accidents along this stretch had gone down to 25 in 2013. In 2011, the number of deaths here was 95 and after the fixes, in 2013 the death toll decreased to 25. The number of injured had also gone down by three-fourths of the previous number.

So, it is proved that fixing the black spots can drastically reduce the number of road accidents. But, the pertinent question is: As it took six years to repair the 11 black spots, should we have to wait 114 years for all of the 209 black spots to be fixed? At least the snail space in improving these accident-prone areas should make us a little bit optimistic.

Media reports say that the RHD has been taking up projects since 2009 to repair the 209 accident-prone areas. Six months have passed in just examining and experimenting with a Tk165cr project.

When valuable lives of the region are being lost in road accidents, the dillydallying of the government in repairing the potholes and fixing the damaged roads is totally unacceptable.

As all the sensible people of the world except the staunch supporters of Israel castigated the brutal attack of Israel on the Palestinians, wouldn’t all the people of Bangladesh except the stalwarts of the ruling party criticise the government for its lackadaisical approach of repairing the black spots?

The Communications Ministry has taken up projects of about Tk30,000cr for the construction and repair of roads and bridges. But a project to lessen the prevalence of accidents has been hanging in limbo for the past six years.

It is really difficult for the ruling party to shut the mouths of the opposition who are already alleging that the government is only interested in big projects rather than effective ones, as it is easier to extort money in those projects. Now, the onus is on the government to prove that the allegation is wrong.