Road accidents
I am writing in response to Sayed Zain AlMahmood's letter 'Seize the moment' published in the Star Magazine on 13 March. At the outset, I would like to convey my heartiest thanks to him for his outstanding, timely & informative article on road accidents. In his writing, he gave a vivid picture and statistics of the causes & casualties of road accidents occurring in Bangladesh and around the world. He terms road accident as a forgotten epidemic & compares it to malaria and tuberculosis which get timely attention from the government, media & donors. He also mentions that road crashes cost us roughly 2% of the GDP every year & is almost equal to the total foreign aid received by Bangladesh in a fiscal year. Bangladesh has one of the worst crash rates in the world-- more than 100 deaths per 10, 0000 vehicles. He further shows that the official figure for road deaths is three to four thousand a year.
Various international departments have observed that the actual death toll could be three times as high. The number of people seriously injured in road crashes is estimated at more than 100,000 each year. However, this is appalling news for us as the number of death & injury is increasing in a geometric proportion every year. The roads & highways of Bangladesh have really become a death trap. Yet, the writer also mentions that the transportation issue is nowadays regarded as a public health & sustainable development problem. According to statistics, 1.2 million people are killed in automobile crashes annually across the globe, 3,000 lives lost per day. As many as 50 million are injured or suffer disability every year.
However, road accident has become a burning issue in recent years since the death toll due to road crashes is ever increasing in Bangladesh. Unless the govt. takes action to reduce road injuries and deaths through a combination of tougher enforcement of traffic rules as well as public awareness and safe road infrastructure, road crashes will become an epidemic in the coming days.
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