With both the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) and passenger safety advocacy group Jatri Kalyan Samity releasing their respective figures as to the number of road accidents and deaths from road accidents in Bangladesh, one thing is abundantly clear: Road safety is still a pipe dream for the entire nation.
According to the BRTA, a total of 5,024 people were killed in 5,495 road accidents across the nation last year, while the numbers provided by Jatri Kalyan Samity say 7,902 people had died in 6,261 road accidents. There is a clear discrepancy in the numbers being provided by both institutions, but regardless of the difference in their provided numbers the prospect of over 5,000 people being killed in a year due to road accidents is still appalling.
It has been almost five years now that the government formed a high-level task force to improve the state of road safety, and yet the administration seems to be losing further control with each passing year on this matter. It was just over a week ago that a 17-year-old college student lost her life on the Dhaka-Chittagong route in Daudkandi, leading her fellow classmates to block the road in protest.
Lest we forget, the historic movement for safer roads in 2018 was led by students, and while the movement resulted in the formulation of the Road Safety Act 2018 we have yet to see any visible impacts on road safety. After all, it all comes down to enforcement.
Bangladesh has a slew of issues which keep our roads from being safe, the most immediately egregious being the constant race to the bottom for transport companies – drivers of busses, trucks, lorries are all but incentivized by their company owners to behave as recklessly as possible on the roads with little regard for public safety.
There are few things as tragic as death caused by callousness. With the start of the new year and a new government in place, it is high time that road safety was given the importance it is due.
