We are heartened to see that the prime minister has issued a set of directives in order to tackle the epidemic of road accidents in the country. The directives come at a critical time—Eid celebrations this year have been marred by the high death toll in road accidents. Last Saturday alone, 52 people were killed in road accidents, which is the highest number of casualties recorded on a single day in recent memory, according to Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity.

The directives, issued on Monday at the weekly cabinet meeting, include keeping substitute drivers for long-route journeys, ensuring that drivers and helpers are well-trained, preventing jaywalking, and limiting the drive-time for drivers to a maximum of five hours on long routes.

However, concerns related to implementation of the abovementioned directives still remain. Of particular importance is the need to address the lack of trained drivers and the unruly manner of driving on the streets. According to a recent report in this paper, a staggering 47 percent of accidents occur due to careless driving. It has also been found that the number of driving licences issued as of April this year is almost 10 lakh less than that of vehicles registered with BRTA as of May which means that the number of drivers using fake licences is huge.

The traffic police and the relevant authorities need to work together to implement the PM's directives. But for that to happen, the transport sector needs to be rescued from the grip of the politically influential if the relevant laws, of which there is no dearth, are to be implemented properly. Furthermore, the Road Transport Act draft has already been approved by the cabinet and the process to pass the draft—which has some good provisions to hold errant drivers accountable—into law needs to be quickened.