SIXTEEN people died in road crashes in the country in a single day, said a report ran by The New Nation on Monday. It said the procession of death is gradually becoming longer. Presently, the road accidents are not getting proper attention of the media due to overflow of election news. But what’s true is that, the road accidents have increased in an alarming rate in the recent days.
In the latest incident, a doctor was killed when a bus rammed her CNG-run auto-rickshaw at Bijoy Shoroni in the city’s Tejgaon area on Tuesday. The victim Akther Jahan Rumpa, 28, was an Ophthalmologist of VARD Eye Hospital in Osmani Nagar of Sylhet. Her marital engagement was completed two months ago and she was supposed to marry this winter, her family members said.
Particularly, the death in road accidents increases during festival time. At least 339 people were killed and 1,265 injured in 277 road accidents in 13 days during the Eid journeys this year, indicating that on an average 26 people were killed per day, according to Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity. On June 23 alone, 52 people were killed on roads, the highest casualty in a single day in recent times. In 2017, about 7,397 people were killed in road accidents and another 16,193 others injured in 4,979 road accidents throughout the year.
As per government estimation, the financial loss due to road accidents is more than Tk 40,000 crore per year, a big portion of our national budget. It’s not understandable why the drivers are so careless about obeying the law. Several passengers were killed or lost their organs due to chase and counter-chase among the running buses. Still hundreds of unfit vehicles are plying on roads getting fitness certificates from Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA).
We have penned down the issue in this column for several times but unfortunately no visible change has been made yet to save the innocent passengers’ life from the hands of unskilled drivers. There are tough laws in the country against reckless driving and plying unfit vehicles by unskilled drivers. We want to see the execution of the laws for the greater sake of passengers.
