IT is a common experience for the pedestrians regularly using Maniknagar Bishwa Road of the capital. They are regularly haunted by hydraulic horns blown by vehicles particularly the buses.
The drivers have the least concern about the distress created by their hydraulic horns. They blow the horns unnecessarily while they are in traffic jams. Unlucky people living beside the main roads are the worst sufferers and the sufferings continue till long after midnight when trucks and lorries are driven speedily through the highway.
As for Maniknagar Bishwa Road section, there is a hospital, a university, a college and two schools. Thousands of students study in these institutions and many patients gather every day for treatment. It is a traumatic experience for them as well as people at large living in the vicinity.
Use of hydraulic horn is forbidden by law but people concerned do not give two hoots to such laws and continue to ignore it in presence of traffic personnel who are supposed to ensure that laws are duly observed by everybody concerned. It is needless to say that as a result of the extreme noise pollution, many people are becoming sick and condition of the people who are already sick is aggravated.
It is therefore imperative that the use of hydraulic horns needs be banned immediately and the concerned authorities should take steps to enact stringent rules in this regard and ensure strict compliance thereof.
Bipul K Debnath
Dhaka
