Bangladesh’s Road Safety Crisis: A National Emergency Demanding Urgent Action

 

Eid-Ul-Azha, a festival meant to unite families and embody hope and sacrifice, was marred this year—as it has been for many years—by a tragic undercurrent: avoidable deaths on the road. One story stands out amid the growing tally of casualties. A teenage boy from a rural district was traveling with his father to Dhaka to sell their sacrificial cow—a tradition for many low-income families during Eid. On the way, a road accident killed his father. Left alone and grieving, the boy still continued the journey and sold the cow at the capital's cattle market. This story, raw and deeply symbolic, reflects a deeper national dysfunction: the economy of survival outweighs the right to grieve, and structural failures in road safety continue to destroy lives with mechanical regularity.

This year, the joyous journey for Eid-ul-Azha turned into a tragic one once again. On the day before Eid, Friday (June 6), at least 20 people lost their lives on various roads and highways across the country. At least 60 more were injured. The incidents occurred in multiple districts including Gaibandha, Mymensingh, Jhenaidah, Kishoreganj, Tangail, Cumilla, and Madaripur. These grim figures are a continuation of an alarming trend.

Last year during Eid-ul-Azha, 251 road accidents over 13 days resulted in 262 deaths and 543 injuries. And the story was no different during Eid-ul-Fitr this year, when 315 road accidents left 322 people dead and 826 injured. Rail and water routes also witnessed tragedies: 21 rail accidents killed 20 people and injured 8, while 4 waterway accidents caused 10 deaths, 1 injury, and left 1 person missing. In total, across all three transport routes, 340 accidents claimed 352 lives and injured 835 others.

The statistics surrounding Bangladesh’s transport safety crisis are staggering. In 2024 alone, over 8,500 people were killed and more than 12,000 injured in road accidents, according to data from the Bangladesh Passenger Welfare Association (BPWA). That amounts to nearly one death every hour. When rail and waterway accidents are included, the figure rises to over 9,200 fatalities. These are not just numbers—they represent human beings whose lives were cut short and families whose futures were irrevocably altered.

What is most concerning is the clear pattern in this violence. The rise in road crashes is not a random occurrence. Accidents increased by 1.54% over the previous year, but deaths jumped by 7.5% and injuries by nearly 18%. These numbers suggest that not only are crashes becoming more frequent—they are becoming more lethal. It is no longer tenable to blame poor luck or occasional driver error. As academic and social thinker Professor Robayet Ferdous of Dhaka University rightly noted, these are “structural killings.” People are dying not due to fate, but because of embedded, preventable failures in the country’s transport governance system.

The surge in motorcycle usage presents one of the clearest examples of this crisis. Just a decade ago, there were around 1.5 million motorcycles in the country; now, there are over 6 million. This increase has far outpaced infrastructure readiness or regulatory capacity. A significant proportion of these motorcycles are driven by unlicensed and untrained riders—many of them teenagers. In 2021, students made up 13% of all road fatalities, indicating a rising trend of young lives lost due to a lack of oversight and safety education.

In addition to motorcycles, another 6 million battery-powered rickshaws now roam the streets, the majority of which operate outside the purview of regulation. This has created a highly unstable and unregulated transportation ecosystem, where safety standards are weak or nonexistent, and law enforcement is either unable or unwilling to intervene effectively. The Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA), the primary regulatory agency, has faced years of criticism for inefficiency and corruption. Its focus remains skewed toward revenue collection—vehicle registrations, taxes, and token renewals—rather than regulation or road safety enforcement.

Furthermore, the traffic police, often underfunded and overworked, have gained notoriety for treating road regulation as a form of revenue generation through fines rather than a preventive mechanism. The absence of proactive traffic management, alongside poor infrastructure planning and overcrowded roads, has compounded the dangers. Highway designs fail to account for pedestrian movement, and there is almost no regular road safety audit before major festivals like Eid, when millions travel.

Even after the major student-led protests of 2018 that called national attention to road safety, and the subsequent passage of the Road Transport Act 2018, implementation has remained patchy. The Act introduced stricter penalties and a point-based license system to penalize repeat offenders. However, under pressure from transport workers’ unions and political lobbies, its enforcement remains inconsistent. Laws may exist on paper, but the streets of Bangladesh still operate under a kind of informal lawlessness.

This crisis is not confined to road safety alone—it is a broader reflection of governance failure. According to the World Bank’s 2023 report, Bangladesh has one of the highest fatality rates in South Asia: 102 road deaths per 10,000 vehicles. That figure is almost eight times higher than India’s (13), and even higher compared to countries like Sri Lanka (7) and Nepal (40). What makes this more troubling is that Bangladesh has only 18 vehicles per 1,000 people, indicating that the problem is not volume but how transport is managed.

The consequences of this crisis go far beyond personal tragedies. Road crashes inflict deep economic wounds. The World Health Organization estimates that low- and middle-income countries lose up to 3% of their GDP due to road accidents. For Bangladesh, a country aspiring to graduate from Least Developed Country (LDC) status and build a knowledge-based economy, this burden is unsustainable. The loss of young, economically productive individuals, combined with long-term healthcare costs for the injured and disabled, is bleeding the economy silently.

Moreover, these accidents corrode public trust in institutions. When citizens see that road laws are not enforced, that reckless drivers are not punished, and that victims are rarely compensated, it fuels a culture of impunity. The system appears to protect powerful transport owners and syndicates more than ordinary people. This erosion of trust is just as damaging as the loss of life.

What then must be done?

The first step must be the firm and transparent enforcement of the Road Transport Act 2018, without compromise or political interference. BRTA should undergo rapid digitization to eliminate scope for corruption and increase transparency in licensing and vehicle fitness certification. The agency’s primary goal must shift from being a revenue body to being a regulatory one.

Unlicensed drivers—especially motorcycle riders—must be urgently identified and removed from roads. The government must also invest in short-term campaigns to raise awareness, particularly among young drivers, and enforce the use of helmets and safety gear.

In the medium term, the country must invest in safer road infrastructure—particularly dedicated lanes for motorcycles, more pedestrian crossings, and separate corridors for heavy and light vehicles. Urban transport systems need to be revitalized so that people are not forced to rely on risky motorcycles or unregulated battery rickshaws. Public transport must become a reliable alternative.

In the long run, Bangladesh must create an independent National Road Safety Authority that can coordinate across ministries, hold agencies accountable, and craft a cohesive national strategy for road safety that extends to 2030 and beyond. Road safety education must be made mandatory in schools, and road audits must be conducted regularly—not only before Eid or under political pressure.

At its core, this is not merely a policy issue—it is a moral imperative. Each death on the road is preventable, each accident a policy failure. And behind every statistic is a grieving family, a lost future, and a society that has normalized structural violence.

Bangladesh has shown time and again that it can overcome enormous challenges when the political will exists. The road safety crisis demands that same urgency and determination. Until then, the roads will continue to run red—not from traffic lights, but from the blood of its citizens.


Nafew Sajed Joy graduated from 
Department of Printing and Publication 
Studies, Dhaka University.