All government initiatives taken to curb road accidents across the country have, so far, failed. People are being killed almost every day, mostly pedestrians, and most accidents involve buses and human haulers that put the transport sector in a tailspin.
According to BUET research at least 23 per cent of the road accidents in the country took place in city areas, of them, 74 per cent took place in Dhaka city alone.
As many as 74 per cent of the accidents involved pedestrians, eight per cent rickshaws, three per cent motorcycles, two per cent by-cycles and 13 per cent others, source said.
According to the Accident Research Institute (ARI) at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), over 1,000 people died in road crashes in the first three months of this year.
Using police records as reference, ARI data shows that on average, 3,000 road accidents take place in the country annually, killing around 2,700 people and injuring about 2,400 others.
However, data from Bangladesh Passengers Welfare Association (BPWA) places the number of overall casualties from road crashes even higher. According to their statistics, as many as 7,397 people lost their lives in 4,979 road accidents throughout Bangladesh in 2017, while another 16,193 were injured. Their data further shows that 6,055 people died and 15,914 were injured in 4,312 accidents in 2016. In 2015, a total of 7,221 people have died in road accidents across the country in 2018, according to a report of the BPWA. A further 15,446 people were injured in a total of 5,514 road crashes throughout the year, the report added.
Mozammel Haque Chowdhury, secretary general of the organization earlier said the victims in 41.53 per cent of the reported cases died as a result of being run over by vehicles while 29.72 per cent of the deaths occurred in head-on collisions between vehicles.
Around 16.18 per cent of the road crash casualties resulted from vehicles falling into ditches. The number of fatalities from road crashes in 2018 is lower than last year despite an increase in the number of reported accidents, according to the report.
The report also found that 394 were killed in a total of 370 railway accidents while 248 people were injured in 2018. Waterway accidents left 126 dead and 234 injured while 387 people were reported missing.
Around 35 lakh motor vehicles are registered with Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) while the number of driving licences issued by the authorities is around 24.5 lakh. "Until we get enough trained drivers, the problem won't be solved," Khandaker Enayetullah, secretary general of Bangladesh Sarak Paribahan Malik Samity, said.
At least 87 per cent buses and minibuses ply the roads in the capital recklessly in violation of traffic rules, creating anarchy in the public transport sector, said a passenger welfare platform citing its survey covering over one thousand vehicles.
The mismanagement in the road transport sector, reckless driving and race among vehicles to pick passengers came to the fore recently after several passengers died or suffered grave injuries in avoidable accidents.
The number of road accidents saw a marked rise in the last two years due to a growing number of motorcycles, says a new survey of Nirapad Sarak Chai (Nischa).
"It is mainly the indiscipline in the sector. Most street accidents involving buses happen when someone is getting on or off a bus," Mozammel said.
Issues identified by experts include undisciplined drivers, encroachments on roads, absence of adequate footpaths, misplaced foot over bridges and crossings and commuters ignoring existing overpasses.
Above all, an unhealthy competition takes place among bus companies, leading to reckless and unlawful driving, speeding, bus ramming and a host of other bad practices that go virtually unchecked.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Additional Commissioner (traffic) in a recent said, "Many drivers do not have valid licences. Police fails to strictly enforce traffic laws because of a lack of manpower in the traffic division."
