The high incidence of road accidents is a cause for concern. Mere numbers of killed and injured people fail to depict the multi-dimensional negative impacts of road accidents. Nevertheless, there is a tendency to downplay the causality figures of road accidents. Such attempts do not help address this serious problem.
Last week, Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity (BJKS), a civic rights organisation working for the welfare of commuters and passengers, unveiled its annual statistics on people killed and injured in road-rail-river accidents in the previous year. The figure showed that at least 7,902 people were killed and 10,372 wounded in 6,261 road accidents across the country in 2023. As in the past years, the statistics drew disapproval from the authorities. If the figures are not disproportionately exaggerated, the underlying tragic theme hardly changes.
Two days after the BJKS unveiled its report, the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) released its first annual statistics on the country's road accidents. It showed that some 5,024 people were killed and 7,495 injured in 5,495 road accidents across the country in 2023. The figure widely differed from the statistics provided by BJKS.
The BRTA is the national body responsible for ensuring sound road transport management, discipline and road safety. The head of the body rejected the statistics of road accidents provided by the BJKS and the Bangladesh Road Safety Foundation (BSRF), labelling those as exaggerated. According to BSRF, some 6,524 people were killed in road accidents last year.
Again, both the minister of road transport and bridges as well as the chairman of the BRTA also took a jab at the World Health Organization (WHO) for presenting an abnormally high death toll from road accidents. They accused the WHO of fabricating the casualty figure at 31,578 in 2021. The WHO report released last month claims that approximately 1.19 million people die each year as a result of road crashes. Further it adds that road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death for children and young adults aged 5-29 years. Moreover, around 92 per cent of the world's fatalities on the roads occur in low- and middle-income countries.
The reactions of the authorities indicate that they seem to interpret the figures of the road accidents provided by other organisations as a means to undermine their effort to improve the country's transport and communication system. This is hardly a right approach. The core idea behind compiling and presenting the statistics of road accidents is to assist the government to effectively address the problem. It also enhances awareness among commuters, pedestrians, traffic police, drivers and other transport workers of the need for respecting traffic laws and rules on highways.
The BJKS report also showed that a total of 512 people were killed and 475 others injured in 520 railway accidents last year. At the same time, some 91 people were killed, and 152 were injured in the 148 waterways accidents, whereas 109 people remained missing.
One critical aspect of the report is the high rate of death due to motorcycle accidents. It showed that around one-third of the total deaths were due to motorcycle accidents on roads and highways. The BRTA data, however, showed that around one-fourth of road accidents were due to motorcycles.
Again, the WHO pointed out that more than half of all road traffic deaths are among vulnerable road users, including pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. The UN body also pointed out that road crashes cost most countries around 3.0 per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP).
There is no point in taking the civic rights organisations to task. Instead, the authorities need to welcome their work and review all the statistics of road accidents carefully. It will then be possible to reduce the gross mismatch between the figures of road accidents. Such an exercise can also help address the issue.
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