The latest figures are once again horrifying: As per data from the Road Safety Foundation, 416 people were killed and 1,063 injured in road accidents in July alone.
Month after month, year after year, Bangladesh records numbers that would be treated as a national emergency anywhere else. Yet for us, they have become a grim routine. To say we cannot continue down this path would be a gross understatement.
Road safety must be treated as a priority of governance, not an afterthought.
It is shocking how Bangladesh continues to treat road safety as a recurring inconvenience rather than what it is - a national crisis that must be a priority for governance and not an afterthought.
The causes are well‑known and depressingly consistent. Reckless driving, unfit vehicles, untrained drivers, chaotic highways, and weak enforcement combine to make our roads and highways among the most dangerous in the world.
While we continue to see this predictable tragedy, instead of sustained reform, all we have are temporary crackdowns and reactive drives that fade as quickly as they begin.
We have long had the laws, policies, and guidelines, but have lacked implementation. Driver licensing remains riddled with irregularities, public transport companies operate with little to no accountability, highways are poorly designed, and unfit vehicles continue to operate openly.
Even when fatal accidents occur, investigations are slow and consequences rare, reinforcing a culture of impunity that has become synonymous with our nation.
As long as these issues are not addressed, we will not see any improvement in our quest for safer roads. The economic cost of road accidents is enormous while the human cost is immeasurable. We cannot aspire to stability and growth while losing hundreds of lives every month to preventable crashes.
