¶¶Òõ¾«Æ·

Covered vans which mostly are modified beyond allowed limits have posed a serious risk to road safety as such goods-carrying vehicles are often involved in fatal road accidents across Bangladesh, said experts, campaigners and transport worker leaders.

Due to modified bodies, usually illegal extension in length and width to carry more goods, these vehicles have a tendency to overturn that causes fatal accidents, they observed.

They blamed officials concerned of the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority for giving registration and then yearly fitness certificate to these vehicles instead of barring them from plying roads.

Strict monitoring during registration and fitness checking process can prevent modification of these vehicles, they added.

Recently some fatal road accidents have taken place in the country due to covered vans overturning on other vehicles.

Four members of a family — two brothers and their elderly parents — died when a covered van overturned to avoid a bus coming from wrong direction and fell on the car which was carrying the victims on the Dhaka-Chattogram highway at Paduar Bazar U-turn in Cumilla on August 22.

A report released by the Passenger Welfare Association of Bangladesh, a non-governmental organisation working on the passenger rights, shows that 23.33 per cent of the total road accidents in 2024 involved covered vans, trucks, pickups and lorries.

Professor Shamsul Hoque, director of the Accident Research Institute at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, said that the covered vans were first introduced in the country in early 2000s (2005-2006).

The BRTA report on the number of registered motor vehicles in Bangladesh from its inception in late 1980s to July 2025 shows that the number of covered vans in the country was 52,830.

The authority, however, has no updated list on the vehicles which had gone off street in the period.

Professor Shamsul said that covered van did not fall in any category of vehicles and was not available anywhere in the world except Bangladesh.

‘These vehicles are extremely dangerous,’ he said, adding, ‘the chassis of these vehicles are for semi-trailers.’  

Shamsul alleged that owners built these modified vehicles defying international standard due to lax monitoring by the BRTA and negligence of the motor vehicle inspectors under the authority.

He said that they found some covered vans had been modified with even three  and a half feet in length beyond allowed limit.

‘As a result, the vehicles lose balance and overturn easily,’ he said.

Bangladesh Road Transport Authority’s engineering department officials said that registrations were given to those vehicles which had approved designs.

Some senior officials admitted that the modification of covered vans was common in Bangladesh. 

According to the BRTA report, between 2011 and 2024, the highest number of covered vans was registered in 2018 (5,728) followed by in 2017 (5,201), in 2022 (4,424) and in 2021 (3,800).

In 2024, a total of 2,949 covered vans got registrations while till July this year 2,610 vans got registrations. 

Passenger Welfare Association of Bangladesh secretary general Mozammel Hoque Chowdhury said that owners built covered vans on the chassis which were meant for pickup vans and small trucks.

He also alleged that the BRTA had no specific guidelines on these vehicles and did not check these vehicles during fitness checking test, which gave the owners scope for modifying these vehicles as per their whims. 

‘Whenever you will visit any highway you will find at least one covered van overturned on the road as these vehicles lose balance easily,’ Mozammel said.

He added that about 23 to 25 per cent of the total road accidents involved such vans a year.

Kamran ul Baset, vice-chairman of the Road Safety Foundation, a non-governmental organisation working on road safety, said that in the developed countries, drivers required to have a separate driving licence for driving heavy goods-carrying vehicles after proving their skills.

In Bangladesh, this practice is absent, said Kamran, also an associate professor and dean of School of Pharmacy and Public Health at Independent University, Bangladesh.

As a result, many drivers cannot handle these vehicles properly and cause accidents, he added.

Bangladesh Road Transport Workers Federation general secretary Humayun Kabir Khan said that after importing chassis, owners usually increased the structure of covered vans by at least two feet.

The number of these vehicles increased after 2005, he said, claiming that currently about 10,000 covered vans were plying roads across the country.

‘During the 15-year tenure of the ousted Awami League regime, the government had taken policy to allow more Indian vehicles enter Bangladesh. The vehicles were not good in quality compared with the vehicles from Japan and Germany,’ he added.

Professor Shamsul said that every year the BRTA gave fitness certificate to these vehicles.  ‘This regulatory authority needs a thorough overhaul,’ he added.

The interim government’s road transport and bridges ministry adviser, Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan, said that they were aware about the practice of covered van modification.

‘We are working with the commerce ministry to bring goods-laden vehicles from different countries to check this problem,’ he said.

The crisis regarding modification continues due to the imports of vehicles and spare starts from only one country, the adviser said without mentioning the country’s name.