To end fatalities, make roads and highways safer
ACCORDING to the latest newspaper reports, at least 19 people were killed and dozens injured in separate road crashes in Bogura, Sylhet and Begarhat districts on Friday, laying bare the country’s continuing road safety crisis despite repeated pledges to improve enforcement.
They further state that 3,387 people have been killed in 3,752 road accidents nationwide between 1 January and 7 August this year, underscoring the scale of a problem experts say is driven by systemic failures rather than isolated incidents.
The Friday’s fatalities included seven day labourers waiting for work in Bogura, nine passengers in a head-on bus collision in Sylhet, a married couple killed in another crash in Bogura, and a motorcyclist in Bagerhat.
In Bogura, seven day labourers were killed and over a dozen others injured after a passenger bus lost control and ploughed into workers waiting for jobs beside the Bogura-Naogaon regional highway in Erulia Silkibanda at around 6.30am.
Just hours after the morning tragedy, another fatal crash occurred in Bogura’s Erulia area, killing three when the driver of a private car lost control over the steering.
Around an hour later, nine people were killed and at least 25 injured in a head-on collision between a Sylhet-bound Bengal Paribahan bus and a Dhaka-bound Unique Paribahan bus at Kashikapan in Osmaninagar on the Dhaka-Sylhet highway.
In Bagerhat, motorcyclist Saikat was killed in a head-on collision with a truck on the Bagerhat-Khulna highway at Sreeghat on Friday afternoon.
According to recent data shared from the Road Safety Foundation (RSF), persistent road crashes in the country remain a profound national crisis, with July recording 416 deaths from 458 accidents, driven by systemic negligence, reckless speeding, unfit vehicles, weak law enforcement, and corrupt transport management.
It identified five key reasons behind the country’s persistently high road death toll: technological shortcomings on highways, inadequate highway policing, poor working conditions for professional drivers, unfit vehicles and deteriorating road conditions.
The RSF also said many professional drivers work long hours with inadequate rest, leaving them exhausted and, in some cases, under the influence of drugs.
Poor vehicle inspections and the continued operation of unfit buses further compound the risks.
There must be strong government commitment and effective coordination among all the relevant agencies if road safety is to improve, expressed the foundation.
Unsafe roads not only bring an abrupt end to many promising lives but also inflict severe annual damage in financial terms.
Thus, reducing crash fatalities and injuries would not only save lives but also significantly bolster the nation’s economy.
