Road accidents, causalities rising [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

Road accidents, causalities rising

Local June 01, 2017

The number of road accidents and causalities are increasing as show government statistics.
Road transport and bridges minister Obaidul Quader on Wednesday told the parliament that according to the Bangladesh Police statistics in 2016 a total of 2,463 people were killed and 2,134 injured in 2,566 accidents.
In 2015, according to police reports, a total of 2,376 people were killed and 1,958 injured in 2,394 accidents.
The minister, however, resented that different institutions and agencies were exaggerating the number of road accidents and casualties.
Road safety experts, meanwhile, have said the government is far from meeting its pledge to halve the number of road accidents and their causalities by 2020.
They have blamed lack of target-oriented strategies and monitoring to prevent accidents and reckless driving for this deteriorating situation.
The minister in parliament also enumerated the initiatives the government took like improving black spots, constructing service lanes besides highways, flyovers expressways, setting up automatic vehicle inspection centres and driving training institutions to prevent road accidents.
All these steps are aimed to bring down to half the number of casualties in road accidents by 2020, the minister said.
In 2010, the UN General Assembly resolution proclaiming a Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020, which was also signed by the Bangladesh government.
Bangladesh Road Transport Authority data, prepared based on police’s first information reports, shows that in 2010, when the government signed the UN declaration, the number of road accidents was 2,827, deaths was 2,646 and injured people 1,803.
In 2016, the numbers of road accidents was 2,566, death 2,463 and injury 2134 which shows almost no improvement.
Rather, the number of deaths in road accidents kept rising as in 2013 a total of 1,957 people were killed in road accidents while in 2014 the number rose to 2,067 and in 2015 to 2,376.
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology civil engineering department professor Md Shamsul Hoque told New Age that there were no target-oriented analysis and monitoring systems in Bangladesh to reduce road accidents.
‘Black spots change over time but the system of constant monitoring the spots is lacking,’ he said.
Shamsul, also a National Road Safety Council member, said the authorities had no headache to meet the pledge and it was far from halving road accidents by 2020.
BUET Accident Research Institute director professor Moazzem Hossain said the present government statistics on road accidents was not authentic for lack of any comprehensive database.
Lack of monitoring system combined with almost 98 per cent untrained drivers, with no sense of responsibilities, was pushing up the number of road accidents, he observed.
Nirapad Sarak Chai president Ilias Kanchan said movement of three wheelers on roads and lack of monitoring were major reasons behind the increasing number of road accidents.
According to his organisation, in 2016 the number of road accidents was 2,316, death 4,144 and injury 5,225.
Passenger Welfare Association of Bangladesh report shows that in 2016 the numbers of road accidents was 4,312, death 6,055 and injury 15,914.
According to World Health Organisation, in Bangladesh about 21,000 people are killed in road accidents every year.
BRTA chairman Moshiar Rahman claimed that due to some accidents with higher causalities the statistics on road accidents increased in 2016.