Despite social concerns and campaign as well as rhetoric from the administration about safe road, the reality gives a shocking picture of 6,665 deaths of people in road accidents across the country during the nearly two and half years under the present government.
The death figure has been received from the police department that has tallied the death tolls from January 2009 to May 2011.
The unofficial figure is feared to be higher as many casualties of the road crash in remote areas go unregistered.
Some 5,142 people suffered serious or light injuries in road accidents during the period.
According to police statistics on road accidents, 2,958 people died in 2009 and 2,646 others in 2010 involving different modes of vehicles.
In the past five months alone (till May), some 1,061 people have died in the road mishaps involving buses, trucks, cars/jeeps, auto-rickshaws and motorbikes. Of them, 456 died from accidents involving buses, 332 involving trucks, 120 involving cars/jeeps and 105 others died from accidents involving motorcycles.
The police say 5,560 cases of road accidents were filed and 992 drivers arrested during the period from January 2009 to May 2011. However, no figure was available as to how many drivers have been punished.
DIG (highway) Humayun Kabir told the news agency that most the accidents occurred due to rough driving and overtaking, high speed and sometimes negligence of the highway police.
He suggested a long-term plan with logistic and manpower support to check the road accidents, saying that number of vehicles has increased manifold over the years despite the absence of adequate infrastructure and logistic support.
Kabir, however, noted that if awareness is created among drivers, owners and passengers the frequency of the accidents could be reduced with the existing logistic support and manpower.
ADC (PR) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Masudur Rahman attributes the staggering
number of road accidents to four reasons — road
hazard, driver hazard, weather hazard and vehicle hazard.
The road hazard include unscientific construction of turnings on highways, roadside installations like hat-bazar and tea stalls, and dry and wet surface of roads.
The driver hazards include violation of traffic rules, violation of speed limit, driving while drunk, driving by helper, overtime driving and inefficient driver.
The weather hazards include slippery road due to rain, driving in foggy weather without fog light, while vehicle hazards include faulty vehicles.
-With UNB/New Age input
