No system yet for drivers’ drug test in Bangladesh
The Bangladesh authorities have not yet introduced a regular and universal system to carry out drug tests on drivers in defiance of a High Court directive issued over a year ago.
While the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority has not put in place a system for the dope test the Dhaka Metropolitan Police are not conducting the test regularly, said officials.
The transport operators, too, have introduced no system to check the level of drugs among the drivers.
Against this backdrop, prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday asked the authorities concerned to bring the drivers under a dope-testing system to know if they used drugs, reported United News of Bangladesh.
‘We need to know whether those who are driving vehicles use drugs. They need to undergo dope tests. This test of every driver is absolutely essential. You’ve to do that,’ she said while addressing a discussion on of the National Road Safety Day 2020 through a video conference from her official residence Ganabhaban.
Road safety experts said that proper and regular drug tests on drivers were essential in order to reduce road accidents.
Earlier on June 20, 2019, the High Court ruled that the drivers must be tested for drugs and eyesight before they were given driving licences and while driving in order to check accidents.
The court also asked the government, the BRTA and the police to introduce a system in six months for carrying out the tests.
The HC instruction came as drug addiction emerged as a serious concern for the authorities and the transport owners as reckless driving was pushing up the number of fatal road accidents.
Currently, the BRTA only conducts a medical test on the professional drivers which does not include any test on drug detection.
BRTA secretary Oliur Rahman on Thursday told New Age that following the HC directive they sent a letter to the Narcotics Control Department to facilitate it with kits and experts when the authority would operate mobile courts for dope tests on roads.
Till now there is no progress in this regard, he added.
The highway police and the DMP traffic department have no system to examine drug levels in the blood of the drivers on duty.
DMP joint commissioner (traffic-south) Ashraf Uddin said that currently they had some machines for checking breathing as dope test, which were used occasionally if there were any requests.
Regularly they don’t use these machines, he added.
According to Dhaka Road Transport Owners Association general secretary Khandakar Enayet Ullah, an estimated 40 to 50 per cent drivers working in Dhaka city used drugs.
Association leaders on September 18, 2019 announced that they would arrange drug tests for the bus drivers in Dhaka city from December 1 of the year with the help of the authorities in the wake of growing road accident fatalities.
But they backed out of implementing the decision.
Mohakhali Bus Terminal Owners Association present Abul Kalam alleged that they did not get any kit and legal support from the authorities yet to arrange dope tests for drivers.
Professor Mizanur Rahman, director of Accident Research Institute of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, said that in Bangladesh the tendency of taking alcohol among drivers was low as alcohol was expensive.
He suggested that the authorities should take help of doctors in introducing a system to check presence of other drugs in the transport workers.
The institute’s assistant professor Kazi Md Shifun Newaz said that drugs created excessive confidence and induced risk-taking behaviour among bus drivers as a result of which they resorted to reckless driving and did not hesitate to hit other vehicles on the road.
Source: New Age
