Deaths from accidents: A major concern

It is now a country where there is no guarantee of natural death. We don’t need any reason to die, no specific place to die, no time to die and even death has got no time to warn us. One fine morning or on a sunny day or at twilight or at dawn you may crush anybody under the two wheels of your bike or you yourself may be crushed under the wheels of a giant goods-laden truck.

According to a recent report published in The Business Post, every day road accidents claims roughly ten lives and of the accidents involvement of motorcycles is the highest. The newspaper quoted the Road Safety Wing of the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA). Even if the BRTA wasn’t quoted we could also do the algebra and mathematics of the deaths from accidents. They happen just before our eyes every day. Sometimes we notice them and at other times they go unnoticed.

People know them only to un-know them knowing it very well that their bodies may one day will lie unnoticed in a pool of blood on a street of somewhere in this godforsaken country. There is no implementation of traffic rules and correct figures of how many vehicles a city can take in making the streets of the country virtual death traps. The procession of deaths from accidents is getting bigger every day. Pathetically from both ends – the government and citizens – there is a tendency not to go by the rules turning the country into a place of disorder and defiance.

The reasons for accidents are many and so are the solutions – reckless driving, forced overtaking, breaking traffic laws, unnecessary and dangerous competitions, long time driving without a break, incompetency of drivers, hazardous roads, careless bike riding, ineffective traffic system and lack of public awareness. These are just the few of those that are responsible for road accidents. The list goes on.

It is not a big question what kind of murder or death it is by defining it. Death is death and if this kind of death happens due to negligence we just can’t let it go this way for a long time. We have already learnt to bear the sight of gory deaths in accidents. No longer do they hurt our hearts, no longer do we feel the pain and pang, no longer do we feel the prick of our conscience. We have learnt just how to avoid them. We read the news of deaths in the newspapers, we watch them on televisions and the next morning we forget them.

But what about those who lose their near and dear ones? Can they forget the memory of them? Can they go on with their lives without them? How are the lives of those who lose their beloved lone bread earner? There is none to look after them.

We expect that the government and its organizations or organs concerned will come up with ideas and plans to stop accidents that very often don’t seem to be only accidents. Though the solution doesn’t only lie with the government and its agencies. The conscious citizens, have also some parts to play. But if there is no initiative at all from the part of the state then it will become a daunting and impossible task to put an end to such accidents.