Shawdesh Desk:

At least 704 students have been killed and 432 others injured in road accidents across the country in the last two years, official statistics said.

According to the data of Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity, at least 329 students were killed and 101 others injured in 2021. Some 375 students were killed and 331 injured in 2020.

In the latest incident, North South University (NSU) student Maisha Momotaz Meem (21), a sixth-semester student of the university’s English department, was killed in a road crash on Kuril flyover in the capital.

Earlier, Dhaka College student Ehsanul Islam Rizvi was killed in a motorcycle accident in Kishoreganj on March 6. Jahangirnagar University student Abdullah Al Mahmud was killed in a motorcycle accident in Natore.

On February 1, Mahmud Habib Himel, a fourth-year student of Rajshahi University, was crushed to death as a truck ran over a motorcycle on the university campus.

Hundreds of students took to the streets in Dhaka on November 24, 2021, demanding safe roads after a Notre Dame College student Nayeem Hasan, 17, was ran over and killed by a Dhaka South City Corporation garbage truck.

The student protests got intensified after Mainuddin Islam, SSC examinee from Ekramunnesa Boys’ High School, was run over and killed by a bus of Anabil Paribahan at Rampura in Dhaka on November 29.

Amid the demonstrations staged by students for safe roads, two college students were killed by a truck in Bogura’s Sherpur on November 30, while December 3, a private university student Mahadi Hassan Limon, 21, was killed in a road accident at the capital’s Uttara in a road accident.

Risul Islam, a student of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman science and Technology University in Gopalganj was killed in road accident on December 27 while on December 18, Jagannath University student Sabrina Aktar was killed in a road accident at Sonaimori of Noakhali.

The data shows that the numbers of road accidents and road traffic casualties are increasing in the country despite the government has taken various initiatives to reduce the road accidents.

Experts said the authorities pledged to bring back discipline on roads and undertook measures to decrease road crashes but the recent data showed those initiatives have failed to bring any good results on the roads.

Talking to the Daily Sun, Jatri Kalyan Samity General Secretary Mozammel Hoque Chowdhury said the causes of the road accidents have already been identified, but there is no visible progress to resolve the problems to ensure safe road in the country.

He said: “After every road accident, our government or concerned agency promised to take necessary steps in this regard and they were also working actively for few days but they forgotten everything after few days of the incident.”

The country saw the first spell of weeklong student protests that erupted after two Shaheed Ramiz Uddin Cantonment College students were killed and 12 others were injured as a Jabal-e-Noor bus ploughed through a crowd at Kurmitola in the capital in July, 2018.

The incident impelled the students to demand safer roads and stricter traffic laws, and the demonstrations rapidly spread throughout the country.

During the movement, thousands of students took the capital’s streets to protest the country’s abysmal road safety conditions.

Teenagers dressed in school uniforms erected checkpoints across the city, forcing the police and the government ministers to observe traffic laws that are otherwise poorly enforced.

After the massive students protest, the government took various initiatives for ensuring road safety, but the safety matter is still a far cry in the country.

The annual report of Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity shows that at least 7,809 people were killed and 9,039 injured in 5,629 road accidents in 2021.

The number of road accidents and casualties increased in the year even after the movement of all public vehicles and vessels were suspended for 85 days in 2021 due to Covid-19 pandemic.

In 2020, as per the association’s report, 6,686 people were killed and 8,600 were injured in 4,891 road accidents.

The latest report also showed that in 2021, some 396 people were killed and 134 injured in 402 railway accidents while 311 were killed, 578 were injured and 544 went missing in 182 waterway accidents.

A total of 8,526 people were killed and 9,751 injured in 6,213 road, railway and waterway accidents in Bangladesh in 2021.

Among the road accident victims 2,350 were drivers, 1,715 were pedestrians, 1,017 were non-driver transport workers, 430 were students, 237 were members of law enforcement agencies, 161 were political activists, 111 were teachers, 42 were journalists, 27 were physicians, 18 were engineers, 14 were lawyers and 10 were freedom fighters.

The Jatri Kalyan Samity estimated that the annual damages in these road accidents were around 1.5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product or $4.86 billion of the country. Around 78 per cent of these fatal victims aged between 15 to 45 years.

Among these road accidents, trucks, covered vans, pick-ups and lorries were involved in about 30.42 per cent road accidents, motorcycles in 25.59 per cent, buses in 10.76 per cent, Nasimons, karimons, mahindras, tractors and Lagunas in about 9.64 per cent, CNG-run auto-rickshaws in 8.73 per cent, battery-run rickshaws, rickshaws, rickshaw-vans and battery-run auto-rickshaws in 8.68 per cent, and cars, jeeps and microbuses in 6.17 per cent accidents.

Among the accidents, pedestrians killed in about 54 per cent accidents, about 22 per cent were head-on collisions and about 16 per cent involved in falling of vehicles in roadside ditches.

The highest accidents 39.29 per cent occurred on regional highways followed by 31.51 per cent on national highways and 20.34 per cent on feeder roads.

Out of all accidents, 5.31 per cent took place in the Dhaka city and 2.66 per cent took place in the Chattogram city.

Dr Hadiuzzaman, director of the Accident Research Centre at BUET, termed road accidents a national problem. He said “There are so many laws, there are recommendations, but nothing has been implemented.”

Human rights activist Nur Khan Liton said there are countless numbers of harassment incidents of female passengers on public transport. Another important issue is that drivers are not allowed to have proper rest, which also causes accidents.

Jatri Kalyan Samity blamed reckless driving, faults in road construction, movement of unfit vehicles, lack of awareness among road users, unskilled drivers, on drug while driving, lack of service roads, extortion on roads, weak implementation of traffic laws, kitchen markets besides roads and increasing number of smaller vehicles for increasing number of road accidents.

The association urged the authorities to implement the Road Transport Act 2018, increase allocation for road safety, stop extortion and corruption in the sector, arrange training for drivers, and building awareness among all to prevent road accidents.