THE government has yet to attend to many issues to restore discipline to the road transport regime. The photograph that New Age published on June 19 is partially illustrative of how bad the road regime is. The photograph shows a bus, rundown and ramshackle, at the busy commercial hub of Gulistan in Dhaka, with a couple of people passing by. Whilst the bus remains a danger to the people who are inside the vehicle as it could apparently malfunction any time, the bus can also create trouble and jeopardise road traffic in the event of an accident. Yet, it could be dangerous even for pedestrians and rickshaws as they could get tangled in the protruding frame of the bus and be dragged to their fatality. This may not be the only bus that runs in plain view. There are many others that ply the roads, and not only in the capital city, where enforcement is apparently stricter than in outlying areas. And, the number of vehicles, sometimes with some paint jobs so as to make them appear newer, surges during Eid, when the number of long-route passengers outpaces the capacity of the road transport sector.
Lax road law enforcement often adds to road fatalities or increases the risk of such fatalities. There is almost no one who could deny the proposition. Yet, road traffic managers are hardly sincere about enforcing traffic rules and regulations although road accidents keep killing people. The cause of road accidents, which leaves people dead almost every day, has not yet been a concern for road traffic managers. This is unfortunate. A Passenger Welfare Association of Bangladesh report about a week ago listed 622 people to have been killed in road accidents only in May. A Passenger Welfare Association report also says that road accidents left 9,111 people dead across the country in 2025. Research organisation Road Safety Foundation, however, lists 7,300 people to have died in road accidents in the year whilst the official Road Transport Authority data list 5,490 people to have died in road accidents that year, which is also the highest annual death toll on record. Whilst private estimates are not conclusive as they compile the statistics from media reports, the government estimate is believed to be too conservative. In the list of 191 countries in terms of traffic-related death rate, updated with 2021 statistics by the World Population Review, Bangladesh stands in the 44th position, with 18.6 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.
This is too degrading a position and too fearful a situation. The government should, therefore, put in sincere efforts to mend the road regime and put in place measures to stop road traffic accidents.
