Bangladesh witnessed a sharp rise in the number of road crashes and casualties in August last as 379 people lost their lives on the country’s perilous roads in 302 accidents.
Road Safety Foundation (RSF), an organisation working to ensure safer roads, came up with the data in a new report on Thursday.
Motorcycle accidents turned out to be the deadliest ones as those are alone responsible for the death of 121 people, which is 34.03 percent of the total deaths.
In August, at least 13 accidents took place on waterways that claimed 47 lives and injured 32 more.
Besides, six people were killed in six separate accidents on railways, says the report.
The RSF prepared the report on the basis of news carried by seven national dailies, five online news portals and some electronic media.
According to the report, a total of 113 road accidents, what is 37.41 percent of the total number, took place on different highways while 98 occurred on the regional highways across the country. Rural and city roads saw the rest of the accidents.
The Dhaka division witnessed the highest number of accidents with 73 crashes and 84 deaths from those. When it comes to districts, Mymensingh tops the list with high rates of accidents and casualties.
The RSF pointed out several major reasons behind the increasing trend of road accidents.
The reasons include – faulty vehicles; reckless driving; desperate mentality, incompetence and illness of drivers; unsettled wages and working hours; prevalence of low-speed traffic on highways; reckless motorcycling by the youth; the tendency of flouting traffic rules, poor management of traffic; lack of efficiency of the BRTA; and extortion in the sector.
The RSF urged the authorities concerned to address the issues and take necessary initiative to fix those.UNB
