The Rising Threat of Road Accidents: Is An Urban Disaster in The Making?

City dwellers are often required to travel daily between their homes, workplaces, or their desired destinations to ensure their financial stability and basic fundamental rights. However, long hours of traffic and jams, as well as the potential of road accidents, pose a life-threatening risk to commuters. Several development projects in Dhaka Metropolitan City have aimed to alleviate the struggles of daily commuters by constructing various expressways, flyovers, and footbridges. Even then, the hurried and careless driving of the vehicle owner or drivers, who fail to follow traffic rules, causes casualties and injuries. In these cases, some may be traveling on the vehicles, while others may be crossing the roads.

Observing the recent incidents while daily travelling and reviewing some research in different institutions, I identified some grounds behind how these accidents occur:

The lack of attention to traffic rules and signals is a major cause of road accidents. Many drivers fail to maintain their lanes or obey signals, often jostling for space on busy double-lane roads and at intersections. Their self-centered driving behavior creates unnecessary stalls and delays for others, turning daily commutes into frustrating experiences.

Another key factor is reckless speeding, especially by local bus and truck drivers who race to complete more trips despite fatigue from sleep deprivation. They frequently ignore speed limits and pedestrian crossings, while private car drivers also engage in excessive speeding. This has led to repeated collisions with vehicles and road dividers, particularly on the Purbachal Expressway and in elite areas like Banani and Gulshan. Common causes behind these crashes include over-speeding, driver exhaustion, substance use, wrong-route driving, and sudden mechanical failures.

Moreover, an excessive number of battery-run rickshaws on the main roads and even on highways is causing some sudden collisions, leaving people injured or even putting them to death. Their faulty design, lack of proper training, and failure to comply with the Bangladesh Road and Transport Authority's regulations pose a danger to pedestrians. The rickshaw pullers frequently take the wrong route and don’t even consider this action a fault or violation of traffic laws. Even some passengers allow them to take the wrong path, which shows a lack of willingness to prioritize safety.

Fourthly, existing potholes on the roads and the need for continuous repairs often lead to an imbalance of vehicles. There is a common practice in Bangladesh to repair roads right before or during the rainy season. However, this action sometimes confuses the drivers and pedestrians, and without being able to see the roads clearly due to water-logging (if present), they may lose control and fall into a pothole, injuring themselves.

Lastly, people are very reluctant to use foot over-bridges. Rather than going up to the bridge and crossing the roads safely, they use broken divider points as an escape to reach the other side. As a reason behind not using the foot over bridges, people mention this process as a ‘Herculean’ task and a big waste of their precious time. Sometimes, they don’t want to wait for the halt of vehicular movement and try to cross between the moving vehicles by showing their hands, indicating that enforcing stricter laws for vehicles will not fully address this scenario.

Now the two big questions are: Is it becoming an urban disaster? Will there be any concrete solution?

Examining the existing statistical data on road accidents reveals a sharp rise from 2021 through mid-2025.  In 2021, 131 accidents were reported, resulting in 137 fatalities; however, this number doubled in 2022. Dhaka North City Corporation and Dhaka Metropolitan Police jointly conducted a study, which found that 117 road crashes and accidents resulted in 123 fatalities in 2023. 58% of the crashes involved pedestrians, and 60% of motorcyclists died in rear-end collisions. In 2024, 394 accidents were reported in Dhaka, resulting in 246 deaths. 587 accident cases were reported nationwide, resulting in 604 fatalities and 1,231 injuries in March 2025, with the Dhaka division ranking in the top place.  During the Eid vacation from 3rd June to 14th June 2025, 38 accidents occurred, causing six fatalities and 53 injuries, indicating higher reported cases than previous Eid holidays. All these data suggest that these incidents are not mere coincidences or separate events, but rather a deadly pattern that leads to urban disaster.

Urban disaster refers to a catastrophic event that results in loss of life, assets, or property damage due to natural or human-induced causes. Although natural disruptions do not directly cause these road accidents, the effect of the monsoon is a specific criterion to consider in this context. human-induced factors are solely responsible. In this case, one group supports having strict laws enforced to reduce road accidents, whereas some other groups prefer raising awareness on an individual level to reduce the number of accidents significantly. Nonetheless, will any single solution alleviate this rising trend and prevent this soon-to-be urban disaster?

In my opinion, relying solely on strict law enforcement cannot remove the root of the problem. Without people being aware of their safety, no significant amount of fines or penalties will teach people how to behave on the roads. It’s the individual human being who should be more aware while crossing the street, driving any vehicle, or following traffic rules. For example, a car should stop at a red light even if no one is crossing the road at that time. They should maintain the lanes and change accordingly with proper guidelines and vehicular indicators. Foremost, drivers should not chase time and engage in over-speeding just because they or their passengers are late for a meeting or a party. If everyone remains alert and cautious while driving, the workload of the traffic police will be reduced by half. Of course, there is a need for strict law enforcement to maintain discipline. However, improved traffic laws cannot influence people if they lack the willpower to change the scenario.

Every life is precious. Losing this irrecoverable asset on the roads because of the reckless acts of others is not worth it at all!

 
Samiha Saleha is working 
at the International Centre
for Climate Change and Development 
(ICCCAD) as a Research Associate.