Zaima calls for reforms to make Bangladesh’s roads safer

Barrister Zaima Rahman, daughter of Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, has called for fundamental reforms in Bangladesh’s road safety and transport systems, saying the focus should go beyond licences, vehicles and punishment to ensure safer and fairer roads for all.

In a Facebook post, Zaima said she recently took her second driving test in her life to obtain permission to drive in Bangladesh. Her first test was taken in London more than a decade ago, and she passed both tests on her first attempt.

However, she said the two tests had not prepared her equally for the realities of driving.

“Going through the whole process here, I thought not only about the driving test or licence, but about the overall experience of using our roads and our relationship with the systems designed to regulate them,” she said.

Zaima said many young Bangladeshis, particularly in Dhaka, were frustrated by being expected to follow rules within a system that did not always feel safe or predictable.

She pointed to the difficulties faced by pedestrians, passengers and new drivers.

Pedestrians may have to cross busy roads without adequate crossings, walk along pavements that suddenly end or are occupied, and navigate traffic involving buses, motorcycles, rickshaws and private cars, each operating according to different unwritten rules, she said.

Passengers, she added, often have no control over whether a bus races another vehicle to pick up passengers, brakes suddenly, is mechanically fit or is being driven by a properly trained and rested driver.

For new drivers, she said, following the rules could raise a different set of questions, including what the rules actually are, why they appear to differ from person to person, why online procedures are not always sufficient and why brokers can sometimes make processes faster.

She also questioned why people have to wait for months after passing a driving test to receive documents confirming that they had passed.

Zaima acknowledged that the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) had digitised many of its services, describing it as important progress.

“Digitalisation only works when it genuinely makes people’s lives easier,” she said, adding that if an issue that begins online ultimately ends with a request to visit an office, the problem has not really been solved.

She said every unnecessary in-person interaction created opportunities for delays, bias and transactions, allowing brokers to exploit weaknesses in the system.

“People do not turn to brokers because they want to break the law. They do so because the government process becomes so difficult that an intermediary appears to be the easiest route,” she said.

According to Zaima, this is particularly harmful because corruption can become normalised rather than remaining an exception.

She also criticised inconsistent enforcement of laws on driving licences, vehicle fitness, training and road safety.

“If rules appear to be selectively enforced, people quickly lose respect for them,” she said, questioning why new drivers were expected to follow rules while unfit vehicles, reckless driving and other violations continued in plain sight.

She said the biggest problem with corruption was not only that wrongdoing occurred but also how complaints were handled.

“If people believe that making a complaint will achieve nothing and instead cause them further trouble, the natural response becomes: ‘Why bother? I will ask someone I know,’” she said.

Zaima argued that road safety should therefore not be viewed merely as an issue of vehicles, licences and punishment.

“It has to be about the people who use the roads every day,” she said.

Zaima also recalled the 2018 student protests over road safety, when school and college students took to the streets, checked driving licences, attempted to manage traffic and demanded action against unfit vehicles and unlicensed drivers.

“Eight years later, many of those concerns remain,” she said.

She said the question should no longer simply be whether Bangladesh’s roads were unsafe.

“The question is: ‘We identified the problems long ago. Why has the system still not fixed them?’” she said.

Zaima called for equal access to services regardless of personal connections, fair and consistent law enforcement, safe and meaningful mechanisms for reporting wrongdoing, and road designs that prevent a simple mistake from resulting in loss of life.

“If we genuinely want change, we need to rethink the framework through which we approach these issues,” she said.