The guidebooks describe the traffic jams of Old Town Dhaka as "mesmerizingly hectic," a place where roads can be blocked off completely with just presence of bicycle rickshaws and nothing else. Indeed, the narrow, winding lanes of the Old Town, euphemistically termed "roads," can hold no more than one and a half rickshaws by width. Yet, as the rickshaws navigate the tiny lanes, dodging streetside stands, pedestrians, and other rickshaws in the process, what is noticeable is that the presence of these physical obstacles may not be the biggest obstacles slowing down traffic.
What reduces traffic to no more than walking pace crawl of cycles and people throughout the day might actually be HOW the rickshaw-wallahs (as the drivers of these rickshaws are affectionately known here in Bangladesh) deal with the traffic. To elaborate some more, these battle-hardened veterans, handling these crowded and congested lanes day in and day out for years, if not decades, have a developed certain attitudes toward the process of getting from point A to point B that can best be described as a combination of cool desensitization and ever-present irritation.
Paradoxical as it may sound, such perplexing yet distinctive attitudes cause the constant spectacles of near-death experiences in the streets of these already dense-populated country. First, bumping into other objects on the streets, short of injuries, serious damages, and of course, fatalities, is considered perfectly normal. Drivers, in these cases, would simply carry on what they were doing before, moving forward while dodging new objects. The only thing that differs is now they also multitask by cussing out the other car/driver/person that they just bumped into.
Basically, they feel no need to stop, no need to check for damage, and certainly no need to apologize...just swear some to bring down the anger and move on. But this is still nothing compared to the second point, which is that deteriorating road conditions do not change driving habits at all. The author has had the "exciting" experience of riding a fairly ill-maintained intercity bus that wobbled through (at times nearly tipping over) two-lane dirt paths (i.e. "intercity highways") while carrying an above-capacity load. The fear the author felt needs no clarification.
While the author was waiting to witness his own cause of death, the other passengers were calm as usual, with some still laughing away and snacking on peanuts as the bus swerved side to side violently. And this brings forward the third and most important point, that is, no one, not the drivers, not the pedestrians, and not even the passengers, see the drivers' behaviors as, well, absolutely crazy. Yes, bad infrastructure in the developing world causes unnecessary fatalities, but the cause of those fatalities are not the bad roads themselves, but the people handling them.
The local society's acquiescence that the bad roads, and the bad drivers that use them, are inherently in the condition that they are supposed to be in. To the people of the local society in question, the condition of the roads are taken as a status quo, in the most detrimentally passive way possible. Unfortunately, in the short-term at least, building better infrastructure may conflictingly aggravate the problem of aggressive driver attitudes. With better roads, they may come to gain the belief that they can speed and swerve even more with less safety precautions.
It, to put concisely, is a belief that wider, smoother road surfaces will naturally reduce the drivers' frictional confrontations with potential roadblocks, whether it be a vehicle, a person, or an object. Like so many other developmental issues out there, it is such mentality of the dangerous drivers that act as the deterrent to on-the-ground improvements. And to deal with the mentality ultimately comes down to greater education and awareness. The willingness of the locals to take the reality as appropriate given says much about their lack of knowledge of better examples.
If examples of how other societies use proven methodologies to minimize traffic accidents and road-kills, the government and the common people, especially the drivers, can together create and then realistically enforce legal regulations that can rein in the madness of the roads and restrain those behind the wheel. To give teeth to the measly traffic cops waving batons on the streets of Bangladesh may be the first step road rules are finally taken seriously in the country. For the sake of less scared tourists, at least, a little less "mesmerism" of the hectic roads would be appreciated.
What reduces traffic to no more than walking pace crawl of cycles and people throughout the day might actually be HOW the rickshaw-wallahs (as the drivers of these rickshaws are affectionately known here in Bangladesh) deal with the traffic. To elaborate some more, these battle-hardened veterans, handling these crowded and congested lanes day in and day out for years, if not decades, have a developed certain attitudes toward the process of getting from point A to point B that can best be described as a combination of cool desensitization and ever-present irritation.
Paradoxical as it may sound, such perplexing yet distinctive attitudes cause the constant spectacles of near-death experiences in the streets of these already dense-populated country. First, bumping into other objects on the streets, short of injuries, serious damages, and of course, fatalities, is considered perfectly normal. Drivers, in these cases, would simply carry on what they were doing before, moving forward while dodging new objects. The only thing that differs is now they also multitask by cussing out the other car/driver/person that they just bumped into.
Basically, they feel no need to stop, no need to check for damage, and certainly no need to apologize...just swear some to bring down the anger and move on. But this is still nothing compared to the second point, which is that deteriorating road conditions do not change driving habits at all. The author has had the "exciting" experience of riding a fairly ill-maintained intercity bus that wobbled through (at times nearly tipping over) two-lane dirt paths (i.e. "intercity highways") while carrying an above-capacity load. The fear the author felt needs no clarification.
While the author was waiting to witness his own cause of death, the other passengers were calm as usual, with some still laughing away and snacking on peanuts as the bus swerved side to side violently. And this brings forward the third and most important point, that is, no one, not the drivers, not the pedestrians, and not even the passengers, see the drivers' behaviors as, well, absolutely crazy. Yes, bad infrastructure in the developing world causes unnecessary fatalities, but the cause of those fatalities are not the bad roads themselves, but the people handling them.
The local society's acquiescence that the bad roads, and the bad drivers that use them, are inherently in the condition that they are supposed to be in. To the people of the local society in question, the condition of the roads are taken as a status quo, in the most detrimentally passive way possible. Unfortunately, in the short-term at least, building better infrastructure may conflictingly aggravate the problem of aggressive driver attitudes. With better roads, they may come to gain the belief that they can speed and swerve even more with less safety precautions.
It, to put concisely, is a belief that wider, smoother road surfaces will naturally reduce the drivers' frictional confrontations with potential roadblocks, whether it be a vehicle, a person, or an object. Like so many other developmental issues out there, it is such mentality of the dangerous drivers that act as the deterrent to on-the-ground improvements. And to deal with the mentality ultimately comes down to greater education and awareness. The willingness of the locals to take the reality as appropriate given says much about their lack of knowledge of better examples.
If examples of how other societies use proven methodologies to minimize traffic accidents and road-kills, the government and the common people, especially the drivers, can together create and then realistically enforce legal regulations that can rein in the madness of the roads and restrain those behind the wheel. To give teeth to the measly traffic cops waving batons on the streets of Bangladesh may be the first step road rules are finally taken seriously in the country. For the sake of less scared tourists, at least, a little less "mesmerism" of the hectic roads would be appreciated.
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