On Safe Road Day, Old Promises Return: 111 Recommendations Lie Unimplemented as Six-Year Road Death Toll Tops 40,000
National Safe Road Day is observed in Bangladesh every year on 22 October with the aim of preventing road accidents and raising awareness. This year's theme is Safe Roads, Prosperous Country, Bangladesh First. Under this slogan, the day is being observed across the country today. But behind the observance, the picture on the roads has not changed: every day people leave home for various tasks, some for work, some for travel, some for urgent errands. Many return home after finishing their work, but many do not.
The biggest statistic of this horrific picture is that more than 40,000 people have lost their lives in road accidents in the last six years. The most used modes of transport for travelling from one place to another in Bangladesh are buses, minibuses, human haulers and autorickshaws. Most of these vehicles have no fitness certificate. They have become moving death traps for passengers on the roads. Many people return home every day as bodies wrapped in white shrouds, while many others accept lifelong disability.
According to the Road Safety Foundation, 4,211 people were killed in road accidents in the first nine months of 2026. During this period, there were an average of 17 accidents and 16 deaths per day, with an average of 40 people injured daily. The highest number of deaths, 1,492, occurred in motorcycle accidents.
The latest report of the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) says that in the first nine months of this year, from January to September 2026, a total of 4,285 road accidents occurred in the country. A total of 4,157 people lost their lives in these incidents, that is, more than 15 per day on average. A total of 5,391 people were injured. Although the two organisations' figures differ slightly, there is no disagreement about the scale of daily loss of life.
Yet for safety on the country's roads and highways, a total of 111 recommendations were made in 2019 through the National Road Safety Council, identifying seven priority sectors. There is no visible step to implement these scientific guidelines or recommendations. The government talks of amending the existing law anew to implement them, although the pace of implementation at the field level is slow. As in previous years, seminar rooms, civil society tables and big promises from administrative offices will resonate from Dhaka to remote district towns, but the horror of death on the highways has not diminished.
Road safety analysts and engineers have long been saying why lives are being lost on the roads in this way. They have said accidents are occurring and people are dying because of drivers' needless competition and dangerous overtaking, transport owners' excessive greed for profit and drivers' lack of sleep, mechanically faulty and unfit dilapidated vehicles being put on the roads, banned slow-moving vehicles plying on highways, and geometric design flaws in highways. But no remedy is being provided by the government or the concerned authorities. As a result, the procession of deaths does not stop.
The latest brutal example of this mismanagement is the accident at Bonpara in Baraigram, Natore. Last Tuesday (20 October), 12 people were killed in a road accident there. At least 25 people were injured. This single incident alone shows how wide the distance is between the day's promises and the reality on the roads.
Police and the injured said the RP Special Paribahan bus involved in the accident was being driven by supervisor Sohel Rana. At the time, the bus's driver and assistant were sleeping in the rear seats. Ramzan Ali, a resident of Gomostapur upazila in Chapainawabganj who was injured in the accident, said the bus reached Ishwardi in Pabna at around 3 am. After a stop at a hotel there, when the driver left the driver's seat, supervisor Sohel began driving the bus. About an hour later, upon reaching Bonpara, the bus collided head-on with a truck coming from the opposite direction.
The long-term picture is even more horrific. According to media monitoring by the Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity, from 2014 to 30 June 2026, a total of 125,405 people were killed and 176,249 injured in 72,736 road accidents in the country. The organisation claims this data is based only on incidents published in the media. Considering the real picture in hospitals, the number of casualties could be several times higher.
Mozammel Haque Chowdhury, secretary general of the Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity, has alleged that accidents have increased at an alarming rate precisely because strategic transport planning was ignored and road-centric development was prioritised. He said that before independence, the country's main modes of transport were waterways and railways. Being safe and affordable, about 80 percent of people travelled by these two modes, while about 20 percent used roads. At that time, road accidents were also comparatively limited. He claimed that after independence, due to the influence of the World Bank, the IMF and various donor agencies and the government's wrong policies, instead of building a multimodal transport system, rail and waterways were gradually shrunk. At the same time, through the construction and expansion of new roads, most people's travel was made road-dependent. He further said that during the previous Awami League government, widespread chaos was created on the roads due to irregularities, corruption and mismanagement in the road sector and extortion by transport owners and workers and some dishonest police officials. He said road accidents have increased alarmingly due to various reasons including the movement of unfit vehicles, unlicensed and underage drivers, flaws in road construction, driving under the influence of drugs, reckless speed, fitness certificates for unfit vehicles and licences for unqualified drivers. In his words, all past governments must take responsibility for the loss of life on the roads.
The Road Safety Foundation has revealed the most tragic aspect of road accidents. According to the foundation's research report, from January 2020 to September 2026, a total of 7,963 underage children lost their lives prematurely on various roads and highways in the country. Of them, the highest number, 2,958 children, died due to the reckless speed of motorcycles, uncontrolled riding, or as passengers. A total of 2,812 children lost their lives as pedestrians hit by buses, trucks or covered vans. And 2,193 children died in head-on collisions and vehicles falling into ditches while travelling as passengers with their families on buses or other public transport. On this matter, the foundation's executive director Saidur Rahman said the causes of accidents are actually known to the authorities. What the consequences of accidents are is also known. But there is no remedy. Children are being killed and injured more on rural roads. Because rural roads run alongside homes and vehicles on these roads follow no rules at all. There is also no presence of law enforcement to control the roads. Children themselves do not know any rules for using roads. There is no concern among the government's concerned authorities about the matter, nor are there signs of awareness being created among the general public. Yet through this mismanagement, children are silently being killed and disabled. This is an irreparable loss for the nation.
Behind this pressure of numbers lies a huge fleet of vehicles. The total number of registered, that is legal, vehicles in BRTA's records is 6,724,647. The lion's share of these registered vehicles is motorcycles, numbering 4,997,090, that is, about three-quarters of all vehicles. The number of private cars is 432,114, CNG and petrol-run three-wheeler autorickshaws 329,389, goods-carrying pickups 172,383, microbuses 134,588, jeeps 113,914, and buses and minibuses together total 87,285. Of these, large long-distance and city buses number 58,589 and minibuses 28,696. The combined number of heavy goods trucks, covered vans and tractors is 335,761, and taxicabs, ambulances, delivery vans and specialised tankers together number 238,982.
But behind this account of registered vehicles, the picture is even more worrying. A study by the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) found that unfit motor vehicles are responsible for about 20 percent of the road accidents that occur in the country every day. Without any registration, route permit or fitness certificate, 650,000 vehicles are plying on national and regional highways across the country. Even after exceeding the government-set economic life, a maximum of 20 years for buses and 25 years for trucks or goods vehicles, more than 75,000 dilapidated, brake-failed and expired buses and trucks regularly carry passengers and goods on highways across the country. In particular, about 70 percent of buses and minibuses plying in the capital Dhaka and major cities have no valid updated fitness papers. Illegal battery-run autorickshaws, three-wheelers, easy bikes, Nasimons, Karimons, Bhatbhatis and Chander Garis now roam freely across the country including the capital. According to BRTA, more than 6 million battery-run three-wheelers and autorickshaws are currently plying in the country. In September itself, Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed told parliament that 50 to 80 lakh electric three-wheelers or autorickshaws are currently plying in the country, with 10 to 12 lakh in Dhaka alone.
On this matter, transport expert and BUET assistant professor Kazi Md Saifun Newaz said Bangladesh has the Road Transport Act, 2018 and the Road Transport Rules, 2022. But roads do not become safe merely by enacting laws. What is needed is effective enforcement of the law, risk-based planning and coordination among all concerned institutions. Road design and construction, vehicle safety, speed control, driver competence, use of quality helmets and seatbelts, pedestrian safety and emergency treatment after road crashes, every area must be brought under an integrated framework. He said, sad but true, everyone is aware of the causes of and remedies for road accidents. Only for lack of sustained and coordinated initiatives is an effective remedy not possible.
Globally, the United Nations has declared 2021 to 2030 as the Decade of Action for Road Safety. Its main goal is to halve the number of deaths and injuries from road accidents worldwide by 2030. The UN General Assembly adopted this initiative in 2020. The global action plan prepared in coordination with the World Health Organization emphasises safe road infrastructure, vehicle safety, speed limit control, law enforcement and ensuring rapid treatment after accidents. On 20 and 21 July, a high-level meeting on road safety was held at the UN headquarters in New York, United States. Bangladesh was represented there by Road Transport and Bridges Minister Sheikh Rabiul Alam. At the meeting, he spoke of various initiatives including AI-based speed control, rapid emergency medical care after accidents and ensuring pedestrian safety. He also raised the pledge to formulate an integrated road safety law by 2027. So on this Safe Road Day, the question is one: when will the pledges and the 111 recommendations come down from paper and take effect on the roads.
