Opposition Leader Rawshan Ershad yesterday urged the government to take action in order to make roads safe for people in the country.
Hundreds of people die in road crashes every year, she said, calling it a big disaster for the country.
Rawshan blamed inefficient drivers, negligence in implementing traffic rules and reckless driving on the road accidents.
She also said many famous and meritorious people were falling victims to such accidents.
Senior journalist Zaglul Ahmed Chowdhury was killed in a road accident in the capital’s Karwan Bazar area on November 30.
Filmmaker Tareque Masud and Dhaka University teacher Mishuk Munier died in a road crash in Manikganj on August 13, 2011.
According to government statistics, eight people die every day in road crashes on an average but the World Bank put the number at 30 and the World Health Organisation at 48.
The country has witnessed many tragic road accidents in the recent years and the majority of these happened because of reckless driving.
On July 11, 2011, 41 schoolchildren and two college students were killed in an accident at Mirsharai in Chittagong.
On February 15 this year, seven schoolchildren drowned when a bus carrying them plunged into a pond in Chaugachha upazila of Jessore.
A total of 49,847 road accidents took place in the country in the last 15 years, killing 42,526 people and injuring around 39,000, says a report of the Accident Research Institute at Buet.
The report was prepared on the basis of police records and the actual numbers are believed to be much higher as many accidents go unreported.
The highest punishment for reckless driving was three years’ imprisonment since October 10, 1985 but on 20 November this year, the High Court raised it to seven years’ imprisonment.
