Our roads and highways have always been decidedly unsafe places, regardless of whether one is inside a vehicle or not. But the recent statistics which dictate that last month witnessed more than 500 lives being lost in road accidents is staggering even by Bangladesh's own, very morbid standards.
According to a report published by the Road Safety Foundation, 516 people lost their lives while 812 sustained serious injuries throughout 559 separate instances of road accidents throughout the nation in June, and that close to 34% of the death toll accounted for motorcycle-related accidents.
To say that the situation is dire would be an understatement.
It has now been close to half a decade that the nation witnessed the historic student-led movement for safer roads, and while a lot of legislation and policies have been enacted to try and curb the number of road accidents they have resulted in next to no reductions in their frequency. At the core of such accidents, which continue to happen, again and again, are reckless drivers, often without licenses, who have no business operating such vehicles.
It is a well known fact that bus companies all but incentivize reckless driving, which lead to so many people losing their lives on the roads, and the slightest hint of regulations often results in agitation from bus company owners and drivers alike. This is the sort of mafioso behaviour that leads to the status quo being kept intact. While another problem that is seemingly unaddressed, that contributes to road accidents, is the number of unfit vehicles still being allowed to ply our roads and highways.
While the Road Transport Act of 2018 has been in effect for years now, news about our unsafe roads and highways continue to come at an alarming rate with next to no implementation of the relevant laws in sight.
We should not be demanding safer roads and highways this far into our nation's development trajectory. This is a basic requirement that the government needs to fulfill, otherwise everything we have achieved as a nation threatens to be lost.