The country's high-risk roads and highways have mostly made news for all the wrong reasons. This may change for the better if the Roads and Highways Department (RHD) can give the road users the expected benefits through a Tk 1.65-billion project it devised for implementation. Known as accident-prone black spots, the turns and twists of road segments may now turn driver-friendly in more ways than they ever were. That the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) was involved with the task of identifying the risky factors is assurance enough of a sound analysis of the danger posed by roads at some points because of faulty structure or design of roads or bridges, material obstruction to vision or similar other difficulties. According to RHD, it has already removed 83 such accident-prone black spots. Now it is willing to embark on eliminating the rest under the proposed project.
What is important here is the monitoring of the spots the RHD claims it has done away with. If the record is maintained meticulously, it will be able to show how the move has helped reduce accidents at those spots over a certain period of time. Even naked eyes can detect how blind turns and twists in the country's highways or the obstructed views of approach roads from bridges can be a cause for fatal road accidents. These are as dangerous as the railway crossings without a gatekeeper or bars. People know of such crossings but hardly of road segments where accidents continue to occur repeatedly. Now the monitoring is essential to make an objective assessment of the job done. A report carried in a vernacular contemporary has painted a most pathetic picture of road renovation. It claims that about 50 per cent of the total expenditure goes to the pockets of officials and influential people of the locality. Bribes and corruption mark the entire process. The result is substandard work and roads and other structures on them have a very short life span.
There is no reason why the same corruption culture should mar the project under consideration. But once such malpractices become systemic, it is also very difficult to get rid of the same. In case of dealing with an issue involving road safety, therefore, proper use of the fund becomes all the more crucial. If the project is implemented casually with the same willy-nilly approach, it will hardly be able to address the problem facing the countries roads and highways. Accidents exact a heavy price not only on an individual or a family but also on society at large. The country's deplorable records on this cannot be made worse by leaving the job half done or done in a careless manner. Architects and engineers can suggest the exact distance, altitude and other related matters in shaping a road turn, approach road and the height of a bridge. There should be no compromise on the requirements. Once again, involvement of the BUET at all stages of the project's implementation may guarantee perfection.
