Last week in Bagerhat, a microbus carrying a bride, a groom, and their relatives collided with a bus resulting in 14 deaths. The nation mourned.
The story is not an isolated one though. Every year, thousands of lives perish on the roads in Bangladesh. In 2025, Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) reported a record high of 5,490 deaths.
The officially reported deaths significantly vary from that of independent monitors like the Bangladesh Passenger Welfare Associate (BPWA) which reported 9,111 fatalities and nearly 15,000 injuries in 2025.
As per WHO estimates, road crashes accounted for 31,578 deaths in 2021,with 19 deaths per 100,000 people. This makes Bangladesh among the top in Asia in terms of fatality rate.
The statistics do not only reveal the grim picture of road safety in Bangladeshbut points to the significant social, health, and economic risks that lack of road safety is associated with.
As per the World Bank, road crashes cost between 3-5% of the annual GDP. In 2025, this translated to a financial loss of over TK 60,000 crore.
Besides, WHO estimates suggest that over 78% of the road crash victims are of the working age population (18-65). The fatalities thus push back thousands of families to intergenerational poverty every year.
Thus, road safety needs to be a priority agenda for the government. But there is more to it than the statistics reveal. By pursuing road safety, the government can trigger a domino effect -- a system wide change to ensure good governance and accountability. It promises to be a keystone reform and these are the reasons why:
Crowding in good capital and dismantling the culture of extortion and corruption
The transport sector has long been the primary feeding ground for political muscle and systemic extortion. It is largely informal in terms of operations and employment, with a large number of vehicles running without fitness and proper documentation.
The transport sector has been used as a sink to address youth unemployment. It attracts a significant share of the youth migrating from rural to urban areas in search of jobs. The sector is also used by the ruling party to rehabilitate its grassroots members and leaders.
In exchange, it offers protection from strikes and other movements by the opposition parties. In the process, the transport sector perpetuates systemic extortion and corruption across agencies within the government.
As such, to ensure road safety, the government must first address the issue of informality and politicalization of the sector.
To achieve this, the government must allow good capital to crowd in and bad capital to crowd out.
The good capital will demand for efficiency in transport management, better roads and better maintenance of roads, proper vehicles, and proper traffic management.
The good capital will also thus crowd out inefficiencies in the transport management and the traffic system in Bangladesh, while the culture of extortion and corruption is dismantled.
Reforming law enforcement, improving civic confidence, and civic participation
The image of a traffic sergeant is often associated with negotiating fines rather than ensuring safety.
To ensure road safety, the government must reform and modernize the traffic police and the highway police through body cams, digitized fining systems, and performance-based accountability.
These would transform the police from a predatory force into a service-oriented one.
Besides, successful reform of the law enforcement agency will serve as a blueprint for wider police reform.
By embracing safety as the motto, the law enforcement agency will be driven by a purpose and a mission that will soon translate to public confidence and drive to join hands with the police to ensure safety.
The drive to reform law enforcement will soon become a social drive among the people to become law abiding citizens.
Combating gender-based violence (GBV) and triggering system-wide reform for safety
Women suffer the most not only because of crashes but because of the hostility that they face.
Report from ActionAid and UN Women in 2024 suggests that 84% of women have experienced sexual harassment on public transport at some point in their lives. The harassment includes verbal and physical abuse.
Investing in safe, well-lit, and strictly-monitored public transport will not only reduce accidents; it will unlock the economic potential of half the population, allowing women to pursue education and employment without fear.
Besides, the transport sector in Bangladesh is predominantly driven by men. The drive for safety for women, will also ensure employment of women.
Prime Minister Tarique Rahman has proposed pink buses for the women in Dhaka. This can be the beginning of the system-wide reform to road safety in Bangladesh.
Education and employment: Transformation from informal to formal jobs
We need to upskill current drivers and produce skilled drivers for the future. Some of these drivers can also be sent abroad as skilled workers and this will also foster high quality training centres for drivers, helpers, and mechanics.
Besides, integrating road safety into the national curriculum can be the first step toward building a culture of compliance.
A generation that learns to respect a traffic light is a generation that will grow up to respect the rule of law in every other facet of life, from paying taxes to honouring contracts.
Digital governance and the fintech leap
Currently, the road sector is a cash-heavy environment involving spot fines to toll booths and license renewals. This cash leakage is where corruption breathes.
Implementing a digital enforcement system (AI-enabled CCTV, e-citations, and RFID-tagged vehicles) can remove human discretion from the ticketing process.
This will force millions of transport workers and vehicle owners into the formal digital economy.
Once a driver is forced to pay a fine via a mobile financial service (like bKash or Nagad) or a bank, they are integrated into the national digital ID system. This will boost financial inclusion and create a massive data trail for tax compliance.
Urban resilience and decentralization
The chaos of our roads is a primary reason why Dhaka is paralyzed. The focus should shift from moving cars to moving people.
Prioritizing road safety will lead to transit-oriented development (TOD) which includes safe walkways, dedicated bus lanes, and synchronized traffic lights.
If public transport becomes safe and predictable, more people from the wealthier classes will abandon private cars. This will lower pollution levels, make suburban living viable, and naturally encourage the decentralization of Dhaka as people can reliably commute from further away.
The path forward
The safe system approach must be the hallmark of this new era of governance. This may involve:
- Zero tolerance for unfit vehicles:Removing the 75,000+ over-aged trucks and buses that currently pollute our air and endanger our lives.
- The lead agency model:Establishing a high-powered, autonomous Road Safety Authority that is not beholden to transport unions.
- Digitized enforcement:Removing the human element from fining and licensing to kill the bribe-at-the-window culture.
Road safety is the low-hanging fruit of national reform. It is a sector where the cost of failure is written in blood, but the rewards of success are felt in every home and every wallet.
If the government can fix the roads, it can fix the country.
Md Rubaiyath Sarwar is Managing Director, Innovision Consulting.