467 lives lost on roads across country in Nov: RSF

Staff Reporter :
About 467 people died and 672 were wounded in 541 road accidents in the country in November this year, the Road Safety Foundation (RSF)’s report said.

Road Safety Foundation, a non-government organisation, prepared the report based on information from nine national dailies, seven online news portals, and electronic media, its press release stated.

The RSF identified several factors behind the high number of casualties on the country’s roads, including, reckless driving, slow-moving vehicles on highways, absence of fixed pay and working hours for drivers, inadequate traffic management, limited capacity of Bangladesh Road Transport Authority, and prevalence of extortion within the public transport sector across the country.

As per the RSF data, among the victims killed in road accidents, 207 (38.75 pc) were motorcyclists; 20 (4.28 pc) were riders of trucks, covered vans, pickups; 13 (2.78 pc) were riders of private cars, microbuses, ambulances, jeeps, 106 (22.69 pc) were riders of three-wheelers like CNG, easybikes, and autorickshaws, 14 (2.99 pc) were riders of locally-made vehicles nasiman-kariman, 19 (4.06 pc) were riders of bicycles-paddle rickshaws and rickshaw vans and eight (1.71pc) were bus passengers.

The data of the RSF said 187 (34.56 pc) accidents occurred on national highways, 232 (42.88 pc) on regional roads, 81 (14.97 pc) on rural roads, 33 (6.09 pc) on urban roads, and 8 (1.47 pc) in other places.

As per the data in November, Dhaka division saw the highest number of accidents, with 138 reported accidents resulting in 119 fatalities. Sylhet division recorded the lowest number of accidents, with just 21, while the division had also the lowest number of fatalities, totaling 16.

The data also showed that at least 20 people were killed and 31 were injured in 26 accidents in the capital city. The organisations said about 421 lives were lost in 458 road accidents across the country in October.