The accidents that left 13 people killed and at least 40 others injured in last 18 days since January 9, is attributed to reckless driving in violation of traffic rules.

The buses of City Special Service driven mostly by young persons without driving skills and sufficient knowledge about traffic rules are responsible for the mishaps.

Off the accidents, the most shocking one occurred at Bahodderhat intersection. Chittagong (north) district Awami League leader Mohammad Sadek Chowdhury was killed in the accident as a bus of City Special Service hit him on January 20.

Only a day before, reckless driving of City Special Service bus killed elderly teacher Md. Harun, also the father of journalist Saifullah Chowdhury, at Badamtali intersection of Agrabad.

The other accidents where City Special Service claimed lives during the period took place at Wasa, EPZ and GEC intersections on January 16h, 23 and 24.

CNG-run auto-rickshaws were the second in the murderous race killing three people on January 19, 25 and 26 at different city streets.

Trucks followed CNG-run auto-rickshaws killing two people in the city at this time.

The concerned people as well as the passengers alleged that untrained drivers with fake licenses and lack of traffic management mostly responsible for the accidents.

Many of the drivers of the city special service buses once worked as assistants or helpers and with fake licence, said Saidul Haq, a regular passenger of the service.

"Instead of driving slowly the drivers are sometimes even seen to raise the speed up to 60km/h in front of schools, colleges or crowded public places," he said.

"City special service buses very often engage in a deadly competition of overtaking one another, said Abida Ali, another daily passenger.

"They force the passengers to get off the running bus. The buses sometimes stop just at the middle of the intersections blocking the way of other vehicles posing a risk of accident," she said.

Lack of proper control on vehicular movement in violation of traffic rules and absence of strict measures are also responsible for these frequent road accidents, said a transport owner.

He said, "If an accident leaves some one/ones killed the owner or driver of the vehicle concerned remains outside the scene."

"The leaders of the transport owners' association make all the arrangements to get the vehicle released and the driver saved from legal punishment," he said preferring anonymity.

"The existing law awards a driver a financial penalty of at best Tk 20,000 for killing someone in road accident", he said.

Harun, a driver of a special service bus, said he does not have any idea about speed limit on certain roads.

The City Bus-Minibus Human Hauler Owners' Association leaders blamed the authorities concerned for not putting up signboards on roads about speed limits of the vehicles.

Abdul Hakim, secretary of the association, admitted reckless driving by a section of drivers.

He said development of streets with separate lanes for different types of vehicles might have lessened the risk of accidents in the port city.

Mahabub Hakim, Deputy Commissioner (DC Traffic) of Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP), blamed the untrained drivers with fake license and the vehicles without route permits for the frequent accidents.

Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) officials said they do not issue any driving license to untrained person.

"The driving licenses we issue might be forged later. We might cooperate, but it is not our responsibility to find out the fake license holders and take action against them", said Mujibur Rahman, assistant director of BRTA, Chittagong.

The BRTA and traffic police sources said they seized some 600 fake licenses and detained 68 vehicles for plying without route permits in joint drives during the last two months.

The commuters, however, said more frequent and strict drives against reckless driving and violation of traffic rules are needed to check the accidents.