Members of the Road Safety Movement, a joint platform of the activists of the road safety movement, on Sunday demanded a ban on production of battery-run auto-rickshaws, locally made three-wheelers, and their movement on main roads.
They raised their three-point demand at a press conference held in front of Bangladesh National Museum in the capital Dhaka.
The demands included imposing a ban on the import of auto-rickshaw parts, production and sale of auto-rickshaws within seven days, banning of auto-rickshaw movements on highways and main roads and ensuring its proper implementation, and ensuring rehabilitation of the drivers and phasing out risky vehicles from across the country.
Abdullah Mehedi Dipto, the platform鈥檚 president, said that battery-run auto-rickshaws had become one of the main reasons for deaths on the road as those were not made following any science-based design.
Braking and controlling systems are ineffective in auto-rickshaws as they were locally produced by assembling and modifying parts brought from different places that is not based on good science, said Dipto.
He also mentioned that the drivers were not able to properly understand safety concerns as there was no training or evaluation system for them.
Referring to different studies, Dipto said that auto-rickshaws were directly or indirectly involved in about one-fourth of road accidents while unplanned charging stations were set up in many places creating a power crisis.
鈥楾he attempt to evict poor drivers from the streets without stopping the import of spare parts, production and sale of auto-rickshaws is nothing but oppression,鈥� said Dipto.
He issued a seven-day ultimatum to the government saying that they would wage a tougher movement if no actions were taken to address the demands within the timeframe.
Shahadat Hossain, central organiser of the platform, stated that the interim government failed to take actions against the syndicate of auto-rickshaws and the number of auto-rickshaws had risen three times after the July uprising.
He demanded immediate actions against the auto-rickshaw syndicate and to ensure safety of lives on roads.
The platform鈥檚 Mirpur zone organiser Afsar Uddin Babu, Dhaka district organiser Imran Sarkar and the central leaders spoke at the press conference.
