The number of road accidents and casualties decreased in the country during the last six years with the highest 28 per cent drop last year, according to the police headquarters.
The Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) claimed 53 per cent fall in road accidents during the period due to some pragmatic steps, training of drivers and awareness programmes.
However, traffic experts said all accidents were not reported due to a faulty data collection procedure.
The official data shows that 4,869 accidents took place in 2007. The figure stood at 4,427 in 2008. The trend continued in the later years, as a fall of 16 per cent was witnessed in 2009, 5.0 per cent in 2010 and 1.16 per cent in 2011.
The number of accidents recorded in 2012 was 2,636 against 1,902 in 2013.
The data also showed that deaths in road accidents during the period also fell from 2,734 in 2007 to 1,209 in 2013.
Allaying the doubt about authenticity of the data, BRTA Chairman Md Nazrul Islam said several measures like widening busy highways and making diversion and turning points visible helped improve the scenario.
Besides, he said, different BRTA programmes like training of drivers, workshop-seminars and mass awareness programmes at public places and in media also helped reduce the number of accidents.
Film actor Ilyas Kanchan, who pioneered the safe road campaign, rejected the official data on accidents. He said the number of road accidents decreased last year due to the political unrest that brought traffic almost to a halt for about three months ahead of the general election held on January 5 last.
Giving the data gathered from six national dailies last year under his campaign 'Nirapad Sarak Chai,' Mr Kanchan said around 7,000 road accidents had occurred in 2012. The number came down to around 5,000 last year due to stoppage of traffic for three months.
He also pointed out that many road accidents had remained unreported as the media had attached much importance to news on political violence last year.
An official of the ministry of communication said the number of highway accidents might have reduced, but the number of accidents was high in urban areas.
"It is true the number of accidents in urban areas has not decreased," he told the FE preferring not to be named.
Dr Hasib Mohammed Hasan, former director of the Accident Research Institute, said due to a faulty data collection system many road accidents had not been included in the related data.
He said the police keep their records on road accidents based on the availability. But in many cases the accidents are not recorded.
The BRTA claimed that it had trained over 85,000 professional drivers during the last six years while more than 100,000 people had participated in seminars and workshops on road accidents.
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