Mawa Expressway: Fast, furious and deadly
According to Highway Police data, at least two accidents took place on the expressway in three days last week, with some insisting that the numbers are higher as some cases go unreported
The 55-kilometre Mawa Expressway, designed to connect Dhaka with Bhanga, was supposed to ease commuting to the capital. Instead, it has turned into a death trap.
Inexperience of driving on an expressway, a sheer disregard for traffic rules, a lack of enforcement of speed limit and breakneck speeding by drivers have turned the Mawa Expressway into one of the deadliest stretches of road in the country today.
According to Highway Police data, at least two accidents took place in three days last week, with some insisting that the numbers are higher as some cases go unreported.
According to Afzal Hossain, officer-in-charge of Hasara Highway Police Station, 196 accidents took place in 2021 alone, leaving 74 dead and 265 severely injured.
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Just January this year saw 26 accidents, with six dead and 52 more injured.
The Mawa Expressway, Bangladesh's first expressway, was inaugurated in March 2020.
From then till March 2021, there have been 79 accidents on the expressway with 65 dead and 67 severely injured.
Professor Dr Hadiuzzamman of the Accident Research Institute of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet), went for a short-day trip to Mawa with his family members on 11 February.
While coming towards Dhaka, he was stopped by an angry mob around 15km from Mawa Ghat. Apart from the mob, the other thing Hadiuzzaman noticed were police officers and an ambulance.
Something had gone wrong.
"A bus and a car were parked and the car was completely totaled from the front side. Injured passengers from the car were being taken to hospital," he said.
But what the professor experienced, as the numbers testify, is a common occurrence.
Ironically, it was the professor himself who had earlier made recommendations to improve the state of the expressway, but two years after his report, nothing has changed.
A frequent commuter on the expressway, Abdur Rahman Rafy, told The Business Standard that the Dhaka-Mawa Expressway was just too risky. "Cars and bikes move very fast ignoring the speed limit. Some cars and bikes stop in the middle of the road for no reason. The buses stop wherever they like and pick up and drop off passengers. Cars also exceed the speed limit leading to accidents," he concluded.
Too fast, too careless is indeed a problem on the expressway.
5-7 cases of speeding a day
The expressway that crosses the newly constructed Padma Bridge was built at a cost of Tk11,003 crore and opened to traffic on 11 March, 2020.
The Dhaka-Mawa section on the Dhaka side of the Padma River is more prone to accidents due to more traffic to the bridge site which has also turned into a tourist spot.
Amrita Sutradhar, assistant superintendent of police of Narayanganj Highway Circle of Gazipur Region, told TBS that they are filing around 5-7 cases of speeding per day.
"In most cases, we found private cars crossing the speed limit of 80 kilometres per hour, while in some cases those reached 140km per hour," he added.
"The radar guns to check speed don't work in the dark, so we cannot stop speeding vehicles during the night time," Amrita added.
An F1 track for the uninitiated
If those speeding because they did not know better was a problem, the biggest concern are amateur speed racers.
Several police officials, locals and regular commuters, told TBS that private cars and motorcycles engaged in competitive racing which caused frequent accidents.
Afzal Hossain, OC of Hasara Highway Police Station, told TBS that most of the accidents took place due to speeding motorcycles crossing the posted speed limit.
Professor Hadiuzzaman added that the mad race of youths turned the expressway scarier at night.
"In most cases, you will find that private cars skid off the road and also hit the concrete median. These races should be stopped immediately.
Photos of accident-damaged cars show the kind of frontal damage that is evidence of high speed crashes.
Officials from the 999 also confirmed that they get calls from Mawa expressway accidents mostly at night time.
Amrita Sutradhar told TBS that two different patrol teams are on duty 24 hours on the 80km stretch while another team is at the check post at night time.
"The patrol team is not enough to keep eyes on the 80km stretch (40km each way) and sometimes we need to drive around 10-15 km extra to reach the other side as there is no available U-turn or shortcuts for police patrol cars," he added.
Drivers don't know what they are doing
Professor Hadiuzzaman said that as it was the first expressway, drivers would need some orientation.
The highway police, meanwhile, says that they do provide training to drivers.
"Every expressway or projects need to be passed through the four-stage safety audit before and after the construction, but the post-audit was not done by the Roads and Highway Department," Hadiuzzaman said.
"When there is a bus bay on any road you cannot call it an expressway, but buses stop anywhere they want. Speeding is the major issue but policemen cannot use the speed gun at all times, so there needs to be perpetual express control or dynamic message sign, which will notify and alert the driver that they are speeding," he added.
"It is a pilot project and we are going to initiate such an expressway in Dhaka-Chattogram and Dhaka-Sylhet route, so your first one should be a model and accident free," he added.
No CC camera along the expressway
Nazmul Huda, an official at the Road Safety Divisions of Roads and highway department told TBS that they have already proposed that the ministry set up around 1,000 CCTV cameras within the Mawa expressway.
"The ministry is now evaluating the proposed project, which will get Ecnec approval. After that, there is the tender process. It will take time to implement the project," he added.
The official also mentioned that people from adjacent areas frequently cross over the barrier of the expressway, which is chest high, and cross the expressway illegally.
"You will never find commuters walking on or crossing the expressway in any country in the world," he added.
As a result, accidents are frequently occurring on the expressway.
For instance, upon receiving a call from the National Emergency Service 999 number, South Keraniganj police station recently recovered the dead body of Constable Humayun Kabir from the Ikuria area of Dhaka-Mawa expressway.
When asked, Abul Kalam Azad, officer-in-charge of the police station, told TBS that a Dhaka-bound private car hit Humayun Kabir while he was crossing the road on his way to his home.
"We recovered a damaged part of the front bumper of the private car from the scene. But we could not arrest anyone or spot the car that ran over the police constable on 2 February night," he added.
On 3 September last year, the body of 42-year-old Ramez Uddin of Bhatbhog area of Manikganj Sadar, was found on the east side of the Nimtala area of the Mawa expressway. Police do not know even after five months of the incident what kind of vehicle ran over him and left him dead on the spot.
Locals, however, claimed that it was not pedestrians all the time that caused accidents. Wild and other animals also crossed the road at night causing accidents too.
"We do not have enough footbridges. How will we go to the other side of the expressway when we need to? The authorities should install more footbridges," said a local, Ahammad Musa of Kuchiar Mor area.
Poor medical services
NM Anik, a motorcyclist, claimed that when someone meets with a minor accident, they need to make a long journey for treatment as there were no medical facilities available nearby.
"There are no available medical centres around the expressway. If someone is severely injured, they need to be taken to Sir Salimullah Medical College Hospital and sometimes to Dhaka pongu hospital for treatment. Their injuries get more complicated because of a delay in necessary treatment," he added.
Narayangnj ASP Amrita Sutradhar said there were two medical centres – Sreenagar Upazila Health complex and Swadesh Hospital close to the expressway. But in major cases, they need to send the injured to Sir Salimullah Medical College Hospital in the capital.
Keya Debnath, a senior assistant secretary and former assistant commissioner (land) at Sreenagar upazila in Munshiganj, told TBS that she would frequently get information on road accidents that took place in the expressway area.
In most cases, drivers slip away from the scene while owners pass the blame on to the drivers, she said.
