Dhaka: Motorbike accidents were responsible for over 40% of road fatalities in January, as road incidents across Bangladesh resulted in 586 deaths, according to a report released by Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity.
According to United News of Bangladesh, motorcycles were involved in 209 crashes, making up 37.86% of all road accidents. These incidents led to 223 deaths and 132 injuries. The report highlighted that motorcycle crashes alone contributed to 40.84% of total road fatalities in January.
The report, signed by the organisation’s Secretary General Mozammel Haque Chowdhury, was compiled through monitoring national, regional, and online media outlets. In total, 1,238 individuals were injured in 597 road, rail, and waterway accidents across the country. Out of these, 552 were road accidents, resulting in 546 deaths and 1,204 injuries.
Furthermore, 37 railway-related accidents led to 33 deaths and 28 injuries, while eight waterway accidents resulted in seven fatalities, six injuries, and three missing persons. Dhaka division recorded the highest number of road accidents, with 132 crashes leading to 133 deaths and 328 injuries. Sylhet division reported the lowest toll, with 29 accidents causing 28 deaths and 63 injuries.
The report detailed the demographics affected by road accidents, including 131 drivers, 89 pedestrians, 53 transport workers, 79 students, nine teachers, 62 women, and 67 children. The fatalities included two police personnel, two army members, one navy member, four physicians, one freedom fighter, 127 drivers, 89 pedestrians, 54 women, 48 children, 57 students, 21 transport workers, eight teachers, and 11 political activists.
A total of 829 vehicles were involved in road crashes, with motorcycles constituting 28.46% of these. Trucks, pickups, covered vans, and lorries accounted for 23.64%, buses for 14.35%, battery-run rickshaws and easy-bikes for 13.63%, CNG-run auto-rickshaws for 5.54%, locally made vehicles such as Nasimon, Karimon, Mahindra, tractors, and legunas for 9.04%, and cars, jeeps, and microbuses for 5.30%.
In terms of crash patterns, 48.36% were run-over incidents, 28.62% were head-on collisions, 16.84% involved vehicles plunging into ditches after losing control, 5.61% occurred due to miscellaneous reasons, 0.18% were caused by scarves getting entangled in wheels, and 0.36% were train-vehicle collisions.
An analysis revealed that 42.57% of accidents occurred on national highways, 27.89% on regional highways, and 24.09% on feeder roads. Additionally, 4.52% took place in the Dhaka metropolitan area, 0.54% in the Chattogram metropolitan area, and 0.36% at rail crossings.
The organisation identified several key causes of these accidents, including policy and strategic weaknesses in the road transport sector, unchecked movement of battery-run auto-rickshaws and other slow-moving vehicles on highways, inadequate road signs and markings, lack of medians and street lighting, construction flaws, unfit vehicles, unskilled drivers, overloading, reckless driving, and operating vehicles without adequate rest. The Samity urged for urgent and coordinated measures to strengthen road safety management and enforcement to reduce the rising number of fatalities.