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February Road Accident Report- 555 Fatalities, 503 Accidents across Bangladesh
In February, the country witnessed a staggering 503 road accidents, resulting in a tragic toll of 555 lives lost and 1,031 individuals injured, as reported by the Bangladesh Passenger Welfare Association. The association’s Accident Monitoring Cell released these findings, shedding light on the distressing state of road safety in the nation.
Dhaka division bore the brunt of the accidents, with 115 incidents claiming 135 lives and injuring 317 people. Conversely, Sylhet division recorded the fewest accidents, with 21 incidents resulting in 22 fatalities and 50 injuries.
Mozammel Haque Chowdhury, the Secretary General of the association, conveyed these findings through a press release. The report, compiled from extensive monitoring of national, regional, and online newspapers, also highlighted accidents in other transportation sectors.
Railway accidents accounted for 38 incidents, claiming 37 lives and injuring 64 individuals. Additionally, five waterway accidents resulted in seven fatalities, four injuries, and one person reported missing.
Alarming statistics revealed a total of 546 accidents across roads, railways, and waterways, causing 599 deaths and injuring 1,099 individuals. Motorcycles were involved in a significant portion of road accidents, contributing to 34.39% of incidents, 37.83% of fatalities, and 12.51% of injuries.
Further analysis identified various victims, including law enforcement personnel, drivers, pedestrians, transport workers, students, teachers, women, children, journalists, medical professionals, freedom fighters, and political activists. Among the casualties were also 710 vehicles, comprising motorcycles, trucks, buses, rickshaws, auto-rickshaws, and other vehicles.
The predominant causes of accidents were vehicle rollovers (57.45%), head-on collisions (19.08%), loss of control (18.48%), and miscellaneous factors (3.18%). Tragically, a fraction of incidents involved train-vehicle collisions (1.39%).
Geographically, the accidents were distributed across national highways (36.77%), regional highways (18.48%), feeder roads (39.76%), Dhaka city (2.78%), Chittagong city (0.79%), and railway crossings (1.39%).
These findings underscore the urgent need for comprehensive measures to enhance road safety and prevent further loss of life on Bangladesh’s roads and transportation networks.
