At least 1,25,405 people were killed and 1,76,249 others were injured in 72,736 road accidents between 2014 and June this year across Bangladesh, according to Passenger Welfare Association of Bangladesh.
A statement, issued on Wednesday, also read that as the association received this information only by monitoring the media while the figures from the country’s hospitals indicate that the number of casualties is several times higher.
The association has alleged that the previous government’s wrong policy of monopolising people’s travel on the roads instead of building a three-dimensional transportation system through reckless structural development on the roads, ignoring strategic transportation plans, has recklessly increased the number of road accidents.
Mozammel Haque Chowdhury, secretary general of the association, made this allegation in the statement on the occasion of National Road Safety Day-2026.
He said, before independence, the main means of transportation in this country was waterways, and the railways were in second place.
At that time 80 per cent of people used to travel on these two safe and affordable routes.
Only 20 per cent of people used to travel by roads while road accidents were also limited to 20 per cent of total accidents.
After independence, in the name of development and reform, donor organisations, including the World Bank and IMF, with the intention of binding them in the net of loans, unaccountable looting by various government agencies, reckless extortion in transportation, and instead of building a multi-dimensional transportation system, railways and waterways have been narrowed down and new roads have been built and expanded one after another, bringing 80 per cent of people’s travel to roads.
As a result of the government’s corruption and wrong policies, road accidents had also increased by 80 per cent, the statement added.
