THE Road Transport Authority reports that 215 people died and 278 became wounded in 216 accidents around Eid time. The chair of the BRTA has urged the public to adhere to traffic laws and criticised civic groups for their recent reports on road accidents. The Road Safety Foundation published a report on June 24, noting that at least 262 people died and 543 became injured in 251 accidents in June 11–23. Instead of explaining the discrepancy between the number of death in the two reports, the authorities termed the Road Safety Foundation report ‘unacceptable’ and ‘confusing’ and accused the group of not sharing the report with the authorities. The authorities list violations such as rash driving, illegal movement of vehicles on highways and motorcyclists not wearing helmets but fail to acknowledge that strict enforcement of traffic regulation is the government’s responsibility. When the cause of frequent road accidents is public knowledge and official records present a shockingly high number of death, the government’s policy approach should be to reduce fatalities on the road, not monitor statistics produced by civic groups.

As Eid approaches every year, thousands of people leave Dhaka to celebrate the festival in outlying areas, but the journey home has always been risky. In April 16–17, when people were returning to work after Eid-ul-Fitr, at least 28 people died and about 50 became injured in three accidents. Around Eid-ul-Fitr 2023, as the Bangladesh Passengers’ Welfare Association said, at least 355 people died and 620 became injured in 341 accidents on the road, railway and waterways. The mere deployment of additional highway patrol to manage the movement of a large number of people and vehicles is not an answer to the long-standing challenges that include poor road and traffic management, reckless driving, unfit vehicles being allowed on the road, unskilled driving, etc. In general, the government responses are limited to conducting investigation and forming ranking committees to devise strategies for road safety, which, in the end, are never executed. The tendency to bring non-governmental organisations under the government’s surveillance, as implied in the Road Transport Authority chair’s remark, does not make the road safe.

The ever-increasing procession of death from road accidents during Eid holidays shows the government’s persistent apathy towards road safety. It is time that the government recognised its failure and took early steps to improve the road safety situation, by ensuring exemplary punishment to all responsible, from transport owners running buses flouting regulations to government officers issuing fitness certificates to unfit vehicles. Equally important for the government is to address the hold that transport owners have on the sector so that they cannot get in the way of enforcement or implementation. Surveillance on passenger rights organisation and disrupting information flow will not make roads safe.