Our behaviour on the roads, on the railroads, and on the waterways doesn’t lead us to believe that we are a matured lot when it comes to reducing risks in our day-to-day lives
The 53-second video clip of the sinking Pinak 6 that went viral on social media evoked fear in our minds. Once again, it reminded us that life is cheap in our country, cheaper than the bugs that die in a hybrid-era imposition of insecticides.
We die in several ways. About 15,000 of us die in traffic accidents every year and approximately 7,000 of us die of snakebites a year. A 2010 study by International Drowning Research Centre estimated that at least 50 children drown every day in the country – more than 18,000 a year. We are yet to figure out how many die due to political instability.
The reasons of death are pretty obvious to us. We all know how people die across the country, and we all know the risks. Yes, it’s the government’s responsibility to minimise those risks, in which it has failed miserably. It cannot control the launch, but it can control the owners, so that they abide by the law.
Having said that, we must ask ourselves: What have we, the people, done in order to avoid those risks. Is our own sense of security any better? Do the people have enough understanding of the risk factors that have been killing so many people in the past years?
I doubt it. Our behaviour on the roads, on the railroads, and on the waterways doesn’t lead us to believe that we are a matured lot when it comes to reducing risks in our day-to-day lives. We don’t think before boarding an overcrowded ferry, even when we know there’s a possibility that it will sink. But when we lose our husbands, children, and dear ones, we break down and cry. It doesn’t come to our minds that we ourselves could avoid the impending mishaps.
We’ve seen these kinds of accidents become a seasonal phenomenon. They usually happen once year, and when the rules are broken. Accidents don’t happen every day. They happen for a reason, and the reason is perhaps when someone makes a mistake. We don’t even protest against those who are breaking the law. Rather, we – with our children and near ones – jump into the traps that the law-breakers have created for us.
When it comes to travelling on trains, thousands of us behave in a very dumb manner. It’s understandable that we have fewer trains for a high population, but that doesn’t justify the fact that we have to travel sitting on the roof.
A train usually travels at 50 to 60 kilometres per hour. Have we ever thought about what would happen if we fell from the shooting train? Nope, that doesn’t occur to us, ever. Protecting oneself, one’s children, and near ones is the remotest thoughts on our minds.
The incidents of trains banging into buses crossing the rail-crossings are galore in this country. But the passengers who sit in the bus never utter any word against the bus drivers’ actions. The bus drivers may be dumb and callous, but what do we, the passengers, do when we see the divers break the rules or become reckless? It seems that the passengers are dumber than the bus drivers!
Yes, we are dumb. If you don’t believe me, you should one day stand on one of the foot over-bridges near the Farmgate area. You will see how mothers, holding the hands of their children, try to cross the road through the giant-sized vehicles. There’s a barbed wire fence on the island so that no one can cross the road like that – so that they all use the foot over-bridge. Many people have also died while trying to cross the road like that, but we keep on doing that all the time.
It looks like a deep-seated sense of impatience is behind our psychology. I’ve seen the phrase “Shomoyer cheye jiboner mullo beshi” (life is more precious than time) inscribed inside vehicles since I was a child, but I’ve never seen anyone believing in this. More so, I’ve never seen any bus driver following the spirit of this phrase.
So, this is us – the impatient lot. When something disastrous happens, we blame the administration all the time. But we never do the soul-searching on what we the people are doing. Are we, the people helping the administration at all to make things right for us?
We are an audacious race in a foolhardy way. Sometimes, to my mind, it seems that we are dying for our own faults.
Source: bdnews24
