Barring unfit vehicles an unimplementable order

The Police Headquarters yesterday instructed all its field level units not to allow any vehicles without fitness clearance to operate on the roads. But is it implementable?

These are the facts:

The government's own data shows that around 6.17 lakh vehicles did not go through the mandatory fitness tests till April 15 this year. Do the police, or other authorities, have the means—including necessary equipment—to test the fitness of so many vehicles? Do they have any timeline in mind as to how long that would take?

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Don’t allow unfit vehicles on roads

The BRTA has only one vehicle inspection centre in Dhaka city that can inspect around 500-600 vehicles per day. So, this order, by its very definition, is unimplementable. How can more than 6 lakh vehicles get their fitness certificates in one day, if the authorities themselves cannot conduct fitness tests on even one percent of them? It is impossible.

This just seems like another instance where the authorities simply give out a directive without really preparing any action plan—which means it is doomed to fail. What is most likely to happen is the collection of bribes by the police will go up. And the number of unfit vehicles on the roads will remain more or less the same, leading to the continued loss of innocent lives. And all this will happen due to a lack of accountability.

In the first three months of last year, at least 1,051 people were killed and 1,440 people were injured in 1,017 crashes across the country. Many of these were caused by unfit vehicles plying on the roads, and law enforcers turning a blind eye to them in exchange for bribes. Despite the high numbers of road crashes, road crash related deaths and injuries last year, the first three months of this year was worse. According to Bangladesh Road Transport Authority, road crashes and deaths saw a 60.28 percent and 40.33 percent jump in the first three months of this year compared to the same period last year.

If there was any accountability within our governance system, the authorities would have already been held legally liable for the high numbers of deaths that occur on our roads. And that includes the police.