Not a single day passes without road crashes and casualties in this country. In recent times, the numbers of such accidents, deaths and injuries seem to be on the rise. According to the Road Safety Foundation (RSF), between 2020 and July 2026, 15,700 bikers were killed and 14,143 other injured in 16,065 motorcycle accidents alone. In this latest RSF analysis, the focus is on this two-wheel vehicle. The number of total road fatalities during this period is more than 45,000 with almost an equal number of injuries. In July last alone, 458 road accidents claimed 416 lives and another 629 suffered different degrees of injuries. The July toll is abnormally higher than the overall casualties during the period under scrutiny. July apart, the country's road crash records are always on the higher side. What is most worrying is that the authorities and the general public have accepted this high incidence of road accidents as inevitable.
According to the RSF's reckoning, motorcycle is prone to 30 per cent higher accidents than that of four-wheel vehicles. Also 71 per cent of the total vehicles registered in the country now are of motorcycles. This shows the proliferation of these two-wheel vehicles on the road. So, conclusion can easily be drawn that the incidence of accidents involving motorcycles will be higher in the days to come, unless some radical changes in the transportation system can be brought about. The RSF has diagnosed some contributory facts of motorcycle accidents. Sure enough, its observation that rash driving by riders aged between 13 and 35 is responsible for 36.29 per cent of accidents they meet. But the highest proportion of accidents is still caused by drivers of trucks, covered vans, pickups, tractors, trolleys and trailers. When on motorcycles, teenage and young bikers can hardly resist the thrill and show of daredevilry of break-neck speed, inevitably inviting disaster.
What emerges from the RSF's analysis is that along with rash driving, violation of traffic rules such as driving on the wrong side of roads is a recipe for road crashes. But the fundamental problem in cities in particular is the traffic jam and a lack of decent transport. In the absence of this, people opt for personal transports like private cars and motorcycles in order to avoid time loss and hassles. When this happens, the tailbacks only get lengthier. This explains why motorcycles manoeuvrability in narrow spaces and, as a desperate attempt, riding on the footpath at times becomes an option.
In well-regulated cities in the world, public transports serve commuters well and the need for personal vehicles is made almost redundant. Without improving the management of traffic system in cities, there is no chance of discouraging personal transports. Governments come and go with the promise of streamlining city and highway traffics, ultimately leaving those mostly in their original anarchic state. Different studies have revealed the huge loss of working hours in Dhaka City. The latest one by the World Bank claims that heat-induced such loss is 3.0 per cent, equivalent to 465,000 full-time jobs annually. So in the interest of productivity of employees, safe commute, long-distance journey and economy of the country, the traffic systems on city roads and highways have to be made smooth and safe.
