After two weeks here, we have reached the stage where we are looking forward to sitting in rush hour traffic on the 401.To distribute the SCAW bed kits, we have to travel to sites in the inner city of Dhaka and in villages — often remote — elsewhere in Bangladesh, sometimes many hours away. We have travelled by boat but we usually travel as a group in a van.
In the city, although the traffic does move, it is amazingly congested. There are more than 200,000 pedal-cabs, a whole bunch of natural gas motorbike-cabs, regular cabs, regular buses, a variety of private buses, large and small (hustling for business) and trucks, trucks, trucks.
The pedal-cabs, and their commercial equivalents: freight rickshaws, seem to be the vehicles which keep things going. They shift people and goods through traffic jams and along sidewalks and lanes. They are pollution free. Without them and the increasing number of natural gas vehicles the air would be un-breathable. All sorts of people — men, women and children, smartly dressed and less smartly dressed — use them and enjoy them, The freight rickshaws carry everything: a complete set of bedroom furniture, bundles of bamboo five or six times the length of the vehicle, huge mounds of produce (often with the owner perched on top), incredibly heavy loads of metal, great baskets of chickens, and apparently tottering (but remarkably secure) mounds of garbage or recycling material.
The regular buses are massively built, un-kept on the outside, generally built by Tata/Mercedes The Tata corporation, originally in steel, was founded in the Indian state of Bengal, much of which became Bangladesh. These vehicles are built for really heavyduty wear and tear. They often operate on rough roads, they stop and start all day long, and they appear to be over loaded all the time with people inside and out. Often, there seem to be as many on top as inside. But they clearly function as a system, shipping hundreds of thousands around and in and out of Dhaka, daily.
What we think of as the private buses range from minibuses to full sized vehicles. They have a hustler, often a young boy, who seems to shout out where the bus is heading and where it will stop for customers who climb on board. These too are filled beyond capacity but fewer people seem to ride on top perhaps because the roofs are less suited for sitting.
The trucks are also often built by Tata. They are tank-like versions of the buses. They also operate grossly overloaded. Often with passengers on top.
In the city, there are sometimes six lines of traffic (there are no lanes) with rickshaws and pedestrians winding their way through. Once, our own van traveled a full block against such a stream of traffic without exciting any more horn blowing than usual. We are told that there are relatively few serious accidents in town, presumably because the pace is so slow.
This does not hold true in the country. The main roads outside the city are good two-lane highways generally built up above the low-lying delta farmland. There are still rickshaws and pedestrians and there are still buses and trucks, as described above. However, here on the open road driving is one great big game of chicken. You put your foot down, lean on your horn, and go for it. Pedestrians and livestock on the edge of the road causeway, rickshaws, and oncoming vehicles are all fair game. You drive on your own side, in the oncoming lane, and on such shoulder as there is – anywhere to keep moving. In this environment, from the vantage point of a minivan, the Tata trucks and buses really do look like tanks with cheering troops on the top, revelling in the speed. Horrific accidents are reported from these roads daily – tens of deaths and scores of injured in a single bus crash.
You would think that you would be glad to turn off some of these highways onto the country lanes that we have to use to get to SCAW distribution sites. These are really single lane roads, generally with a good asphalt surface, again built up above flood level, with narrow foot paths alongside. Again you see rickshaws, which function very well in the villages but with more pedestrians and livestock. A peaceful, idyllic, situation you might think. Not on your life. Anyone with a motorized vehicle, including us, drives as quickly as possible using the horn as a threat rather than as a warning. This is one-lane chicken rather than two. The rickshaw peddlers are hardy souls who love this game. They delight in showing the motor drivers that they control the road – even when the motorized vehicle is coming towards them. On these roads, our van often leans precariously toward the slope leading down into a paddy field, river, or pond.
On these trips, only our leader Ms Linda gets any real sleep. After four SCAW visits to Bangladesh, we guess that it is possible to get used to the traffic.
Peter Adams
SCAW Travelling Volunteer
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