News Desk : dhakamirror.com
At least 408 people were killed and 631 others injured in 491 road accidents across Bangladesh in May, said a Road Safety Foundation report published on Friday.
Nearly 14 people were killed every day on average in road accidents across the country in May this year, said the report which was prepared based on data from nine national dailies, seven online news portals and the electronic media.
Although the number of fatalities decreased by nearly 18 per cent compared with April, which witnessed about 17 deaths every day on average, the report said.
This decline in fatalities does not indicate any sustainable improvement as there has not been any managerial development in the road transport sector, the report added.
Of the casualties, 141 people died in 156 motorcycle accidents, which is 34.55 per cent of the total deaths, and 104 pedestrians and 72 drivers and their helpers were killed.
During this period, four people were killed and two others were missing in six boating accidents while 23 people were killed and six others injured in 25 railway accidents.
According to the RSF analysis, regional roads saw the highest 201 accidents, which is 40.93% per cent of the total accidents.
A total of 165 or 33.60 per cent of the accidents occurred on national highways, 73 or 14.86 per cent on rural roads, 48 or 9.77 per cent on city roads and four or 0.81 per cent occurred in other locations.
Of the accidents, 71 (14.4 per cent) were head-on collisions, 236 (48.0 per cent) lost control, 107 (21.7 per cent) pedestrians were hit/pushed, 54 (10.99 per cent) rear-end vehicles and 23 (4.68 per cent) occurred due to other causes.
Analysis of accidents time showed that 5.29 per cent of accidents took place at dawn, 25.25 per cent in the morning, the highest 28.71 per cent at noon, 12.21 per cent in the afternoon, 8.96 per cent in the evening and 19.55 per cent at night.
Dhaka division saw the highest number of accident incidents and casualties which were 134 and 102 respectively, Sylhet witnessed the lowest 21 accidents, and Barishal had the lowest 20 casualties.
Some 18 people were killed and 43 injured in 26 road accidents in the Dhaka city.
The RSF report identified defective vehicles, over speeding, drivers’ lack of skill and physical and mental illness, low-speed vehicles on the highway, poor traffic management, the public’s lack of knowledge about traffic law and the tendency to break those as the main reasons for accidents.
The report suggested increasing skilled drivers, specifying salary and working hours for drivers, increasing capacity of the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority, implementing the Road Transport Act 2018, stopping extortion in public transport and formulation and implementing sustainable transport strategies.
