Safe roads remain an elusive right for people in Bangladesh, where traffic crashes continue to claim thousands of lives every year, exposing persistent failures in transport management, road infrastructure and enforcement of safety regulations.
As the country observes National Road Safety Day on Thursday, fresh figures from road safety organisations paint a grim picture: 72,736 road accidents between 2014 and 30 June 2026 left 125,405 people dead and 176,249 injured.
In 2025 alone, 6,729 crashes killed 9,111 people and injured 14,812, according to the figures cited by the Bangladesh Passenger Welfare Association.
Children are among the worst victims. A Road Safety Foundation report published on Wednesday said 7,963 children died in road accidents between 2020 and September 2026.
Of them, 2,958 were killed while riding motorcycles as drivers or passengers, 2,812 while walking and 2,193 while travelling as passengers in other vehicles.
The foundation compiled the figures from nine national dailies, 17 national and regional news portals, electronic media and its own records.
Against this backdrop, road safety campaigners have called for a comprehensive, year-round action plan with clear institutional responsibilities, measurable targets and public accountability rather than allowing the annual observance to become a mere formality.
Ilias Kanchan, founder and chairman of Nirapad Sarak Chai (NISCHA), told The New Nation that the government should assign specific responsibilities to relevant ministries and agencies, set deadlines and establish mechanisms to evaluate progress.
He proposed that implementation of the action plan be reviewed publicly each year, from 22 October to 22 October of the following year, so citizens can assess the targets set, achievements made and shortcomings that remain.
Receiving medical treatment in London, Kanchan said his commitment to the road safety movement remained strong despite being away from the country. He also thanked those who had expressed concern, offered prayers and wished him a speedy recovery.
He said road crashes were often dismissed as fate, although many resulted from preventable factors, including speeding, reckless driving, driver fatigue or incompetence, defective vehicles, unsafe roads and inadequate pedestrian crossings.
He called for speed restrictions near homes, schools, hospitals and markets; unobstructed footpaths; safe pedestrian crossings; and adequate street lighting and road signs.
He also stressed rigorous vehicle fitness checks, proper driver assessment and training, and enforcement of working-hour and rest-period rules for professional drivers.
Kanchan said authorities should use accident data to identify when, where and why crashes occur, improve high-risk roads and allocate budgets for preventive measures.
Investigations should examine not only individual responsibility but also defects in road design, vehicles and transport management.
Road-centric policy under scrutiny
The Bangladesh Passenger Welfare Association has blamed the country’s growing dependence on roads partly on past transport policies that marginalised railways and waterways.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, its secretary-general, Mozammel Haque Chowdhury, said waterways and railways had served as the principal modes of transport before independence, together accounting for around 80 per cent of travel, while roads carried the remaining 20 per cent.
The subsequent decline of rail and water transport, alongside extensive road construction, had increased dependence on roads and contributed to the rising accident toll, he argued.
He cited corruption, mismanagement, extortion, unfit vehicles, unlicensed or unskilled drivers, faulty road construction, speeding and driving under the influence of drugs among the major causes of crashes.
Weak driver training and the issuance of fitness certificates to unroadworthy vehicles also contributed to the problem.
The association said its figures were based on media reports, while hospital data suggested the actual number of casualties could be several times higher.
Other risk factors include the unchecked growth of motorcycles, battery-powered rickshaws and CNG-run auto-rickshaws; missing road dividers; poor visibility at bends; dangerous overtaking; overloading; vehicles travelling against traffic; and freight vehicles carrying passengers.
The lack of an efficient public transport system and an integrated transit network has also pushed people towards informal and smaller vehicles, including nasimon, korimon and legunas, worsening congestion and safety risks, the association said.
It recommended expert supervision of the Ministry of Road Transport and the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA), a modern technology-driven bus network, digital road management, stricter licensing and driver training, and footpaths, service lanes and safe crossings along major highways.
It also called for an end to illegal extortion and standardised wages and working hours for drivers.
Road safety law pledge
Liton Ershad, a journalist and secretary-general of NISCHA, told The New Nation that the government had committed to enacting a comprehensive and integrated road safety law by 2027.
Bangladesh made the pledge at an international ministerial conference on road safety in Marrakesh, Morocco, in February 2025.
Road Transport and Bridges Minister Sheikh Rabiul Alam reaffirmed it at a high-level global road safety meeting at the United Nations headquarters in New York in July 2026, saying the law’s enactment and implementation would help reduce casualties.
He cited 2025 figures of 7,470 deaths and 9,369 injuries from road accidents.
Campaigners say the challenge now is to turn commitments into effective enforcement, safer infrastructure and accountable institutions so that road safety becomes a public guarantee rather than an annual promise.