The Road Transport Act 2018 will be tabled in Parliament for some amendments, says Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan.
Speaking to the media after a meeting of a high-level panel on the new law’s implementation on Wednesday (Sept 25), he said, “We are evaluating transport laws and its implementation in the neighbouring countries. The issue of punitive measures is the concern of the Road Safety Council. We will only make recommendations which have to be passed in Parliament.”
Emerging from the same meeting, Law Minister Anisul Huq dismissed the notion that the road transport act was ‘bailable’.
“Sometimes pros and cons emerge, when a law, cleared by the House, goes to implementation. The Road Safety Council has asked us [the panel] to evaluate those issues. If they accept our recommendations, then it will have to be passed in the Parliament,” he said.
In September 2018, the Parliament has passed the Road Transport Act with five-year jail term and Tk 500,000 fines for casualties in crashes caused by reckless driving.
The maximum punishment is death penalty under the new law if murder charge is proved in fatal road crash.
The government then accelerated the process of passing the law by raising the penalty for road crashes, which was maximum three years in jail, following student protests for safe roads.
A road crash that killed two college students in Dhaka on Jul 29 last year triggered the movement which brought the capital and many other parts of the country to a halt for over a week drawing international attention.