News Desk : dhakamirror.com
Bangladesh witnessed higher road crashes and casualties last year compared to previous years, exposing poor road safety, according to a report published yesterday by the Road Safety Foundation (RSF).
The country saw more road accidents and casualties in the immediate past year compared with 2024, a Passenger Welfare Association of Bangladesh report revealed on Sunday.
At least 9,111 people were killed and 14,812 others were injured in 6,729 road crashes countrywide in 2025, according to the report.
Of the road fatalities 622 were children.
In 2024, at least 8,543 people were killed and 12,608 others were injured in 6,359 road crashes.
Compared with 2024, the percentage of deaths increased by 5.79 per cent, injuries by 14.87 per cent and road crashes by 6.94 per cent in 2025, according to the report.
In 2025, motorcycle involved the highest number of crashes with at least 2,493 motorcycle-related accidents, accounting for 37.04 per cent of the total road crashes.
The number of deaths in motorcycle accidents is 2,983, accounting for 38.46 per cent of total deaths, while the number of injured is 2,219 others—14.98 per cent of the total injured.
In the immediate past year, 513 railway accidents killed 485 people and injured 145 others, while at least 127 waterways accidents killed 158 people and injured 139 others with 38 remained missing.
Passenger Welfare Association of Bangladesh secretary general Md Mozammel Haque Chowdhury published the annual report, prepared on the basis of media reports, at a press conference on Sunday at Dhaka Reporters’ Unity, said its press release.
The association in its report observed that the surge of smaller vehicles significantly contributed to the increase in road accidents by 5.47 per cent on regional highways and 2.55 per cent on national highways.
Mozammel Haque alleged that despite the political changeover, road policies remained as it was, leading to increased road accidents and people’s suffering.
The interim government failed to bring reform to the road transport sector, resulting in the increase in suffering of commuters and road safety.
He also criticised the government alleging its failure to free the sector from the grip of transport owners, allowing them to continue the anarchy over fares.
Following motorcycle accidents, trucks, pickups and covered vans were involved in 22.6 per cent crashes, followed by buses involved in 14.49 per cent road accidents, battery-powered rickshaws and ‘easy bikes’ in 13.54 per cent, improvised three-wheelers (nasimon and karimon), Mahindra (tractors), and human haulers (Laguna) in 8.38 per cent, CNG-powered auto-rickshaws in 6.63 per cent, and cars-jeep-microbuses in 5.85 per cent.
Regarding the types of accidents, most incidents—48.84 per cent total—occurred by running over pedestrians or ramming into other vehicles, followed by 26 per cent by head-on collisions, 18.63 per cent by falling into ditches as drivers lost control over the vehicles, 0.68 per cent by collision between trains and other road transport, 0.44 per cent by scarves getting entangled into wheels, and 5.37 per cent by other reasons.
As for the location of the crashes, the highest 38.22 per cent incidents took place on national highways, followed by 28.83 per cent on feeder roads, and 27.13 per cent on regional highways.
Financial loss from the accidents in 2025 was over Tk 60,000 crore, said Mozammel Haque.
He urged the political parties participating in the next national elections to pledge in their election manifestos to improve road safety and the public transport system.
