How Severe Is Road Accidents in Bangladesh? Is Your Rage Fact-Based?

০৫ ই আগস্ট, ২০১৮ রাত ৮:৫৫

With 21,000 people annually killed in road traffic (estimated figure by World Health Organization), Bangladesh has one of the highest fatality rates in the world. Vulnerable road users (VRUs) account for over 50% of road traffic casualties, and 70% of casualties occur in rural areas [1]. Bangladesh is one of the world's most densely populated countries, with its people crammed into a delta of rivers that empties into the Bay of Bengal. It is a country of 162 million people. The low-lying country is vulnerable to flooding and cyclones and stands to be badly affected by any rises in sea levels. Most of the people in Bangladesh can’t afford cars or personalized transport medium. Majority of the population uses public transport such as bus, train, and ferry to travel from one place to the other. Every year many people die due to road accidents. Almost always there will be major road accidents during the holiday period like two Eid. There are many contributing factors to this problem such as poor road condition, speeding, unskilled driving fuzzy traffic rules and severely corrupted traffic police. Bear in mind Bangladesh is one of most corrupted countries in the world. Its 48th most corrupted country in the world. Analyzing last 10 years accident data it was found that the average number of accidents was 2714 and the number of deaths on average 2878 person with average injury 3403 per year. So, to be exact almost 7 people die, and 9 people get injured every day due to traffic-related accidents. This is a shocking number since most accidents happen on public transport [2]. So, the responsible factor for these unfortunate deaths is directly related to bus/truck drivers. But they are not the only responsible group for this disaster. Traffic regulations often not followed properly, and traffic police don’t seem to mind if they are paid a handsome amount of bribe. Another major contributing factor is the monsoon season in Bangladesh when all the road construction work seems to happen. According to the current U.S. Department of State Travel Advisory at the date of this report’s publication, Bangladesh has been assessed as Level 2: Exercise Increased Caution [2]. Road conditions and quality varies from good to poor throughout Bangladesh. Most roads are generally passable; however, drivers should exercise extra caution regarding speed. Roads tend to have many users: pedestrians, farm animals, rickshaws, bicyclists, motorcycles, scooters, and delivery carts. Traffic regulations are rarely enforced nor adhered to, which contributes to daily traffic jams and overall gridlock in urban areas. Drivers should constantly exercise extreme caution while operating a motor vehicle, as it is common to share the road with vehicles/rickshaws/bicycles/motorcycles traveling against the flow of traffic and to experience vehicles without functioning brake lights, turn signals or headlights, distracted driving, pedestrians walking in the street, and commuters exiting or boarding moving buses. Night-time driving outside of urban areas is characterized by low visibility due to the lack of roadside lighting. Fog can be a barrier to visibility, and pedestrians and animals may be difficult to detect at night. The lack of reflective clothing and signage can leave a driver little/no time to react. Motor vehicle density and road construction in Dhaka presents traffic conditions with almost no maneuvering space between vehicles, which often result in gridlock [2].


Here you can see the number of accidents, death, and injury from 2009 to 2017 [3], [4].


In a case of road accidents, the most vulnerable and affected group is pedestrians as can be seen from the pie chart above [5]. While analyzing pedestrian deaths it was found that out of total 10754 accidents, in 6,181 cases the traffic was uncontrolled.

That means, not traffic police or signal was present at the time of accidents. This sums up 57% of the total accidents [5]. 21% of accidents happened where there was no road divider. This means pedestrians could have tempted to cross the roads which facilitated the grievous incidents. 34% of total accidents occurred while the pedestrian was crossing the road. From that, we can conclude that safer road crossing mood was not present there or people have willingly crossed roads during traffic because of being unaware of the outcome. From these conditions, we can safely assume that most of the accidents happened due to poor traffic management and lack of awareness among people about road safety. This can be described as the result of incompetent governance who could not ensure enough safety measures and their failure to encourage road users to use safe road crossing methods.


The most accident-prone place is Dhaka division [6].



Number of Accidents on Dhaka-Aricha Highway [7]:



Data Source:
[1] A. R. A. van der Horst, M. C. Thierry, J. M. Vet, and A. K. M. F. Rahman, “An evaluation of speed management measures in Bangladesh based upon alternative accident recording, speed measurements, and DOCTOR traffic conflict observations,” Transp. Res. Part F Traffic Psychol. Behav., vol. 46, pp. 390–403, 2017.
[2] “Bangladesh 2018 Crime & Safety Report.” [Online]. Available: Click This Link. [Accessed: 05-Aug-2018].
[3] BBS, Statistical Year Book Bangladesh 2016, 36th Edition, no. May. 2017.
[4] “7,397 killed in road accidents in 2017: report.” [Online]. Available: Click This Link. [Accessed: 05-Aug-2018].
[5] “i | A Study on Pedestrian Deaths in Dhaka City Road Accidents,” 2018.
[6] T. Authority, “Bangladesh Road Transport Authority NATIONAL ROAD TRAFFIC ACCIDENT,” 2007.
[7] P. Das, T. R. Chowdhury, and T. Kabir, “A Comprehensive Study on Road Accident Scenario of Dhaka- Aricha Road,” pp. 1–9, 2000.

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