Dhaka, Aug 18 – During Eid this year, a total of 253 people died and 908 had injured in 244 accidents in road, rail and maritime transport.Out of those, 224 alone died in 203 road accidents and 866 were injured informed Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity which accumulated data over a twelve days period before and after of Eid.
While revealing the information at the Shagar-Runi Auditorium in Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU) yesterday, the secretary general of Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity said the percentage of death in road accidents has reduced by 6.25 percent in comparison with the last Eid.
This year, out of 203 road accidents, 67 were involved with motorbikes which comprised of 33 percent of the whole road accidents. The death rate involving a motorbike is 34.37 percent and injury rate is 8.42 percent. The death rate involving a pedestrian is 52.21 percent.
If these two areas can be tackled in the next two Eid, then road accidents can be controlled by 85.21 percent in the next Eid.
Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity prepared the statistics on the basis of news reports of 41 national and regional newspapers and 11 online news portals from August 6 to August 17.
“This road conditions this time were pretty good compared to previous Eid. However, taking extra fare, black marketing of tickets as well as passengers’ harassments have increased,” said Mozammel Haque Chowdhury.
The secretary general of the platform said that before Eid Minister, MPs BRTA, law enforcement leaders were very much aware about the accidents which have not seen after the Eid holydays.
“The accidents have occurred most post eid holidays, while returning from home to Dhaka so the monitoring should be more after the Eid days same to pre Eid days,” he said
In these 12-days, 13 people were killed and 15 were injured in train related incidents which include deaths after being run over by trains, he said.
Besides, 16 people died and 27 were injured in 24 accidents of waterways, he said adding that 59 people went missing in the accidents.
Majority of the fatalities occurred when holidaymakers were travelling to their respective ancestral homes and returning to the capital prior to and after Eid-ul-Adha, said Mozammel Haque Chowdhury.
He said that this year’s Eid, road accidents have decreased 6.40 percent, casualties 6.25 percent and injuries 1.50 percent compared to last years. Of the total 203 road accidents this year 67 were occurred by motorcycle, which is 33 percent of all accidents. Where the casualties are at 34.37 percent and the injuries rate is 8.42 percent.
Among the deaths 52.21 per cent deaths are of pedestrians being run over, 21 per cent was caused in head-on collisions, 17 per cent happened as a result of drivers losing control over the wheels and 9 per cent are from other unknown causes.
Analyzing all the accidents, 27.4 percent occurred by buses, 26.33 percent by the motorcycle, 16.4 percent by the truck, pickup, covered van, lorry, 7.82 percent by the car-microbus, 13.52 percent by the auto rickshaw, 3.55 percent by the Nachimon-Karimon and 4.98 percent by battery run rickshaw and Easybike.
He said that from August 6, before the beginning of Eid Ul Adha to August 17, after the end of Eid holydays in total of 12 days, 203 road accidents were happened. In these accidents 37 drivers, 3 workers, 70 women, 22 children, 42 students, 3 journalist, 2 doctors, 8 law enforcers, 3 political leader and at least 900 passengers and pedestrians were the victims of these accidents.
Taking a comparative picture of the accident on the road during the Eid-ul-Adha for the past three years, he said that in 2016; 248 people were killed in 193 road accidents where 1055 were injured, In 2017 the number dead and injuries numbers were 254 and 696 in 214 accidents, in 2018 the number was 259 1nd 960 in 239 accidents.
Mozammel Haque said that reckless driving, speeding up and using motorbikes for long journeys are the main causes of such a huge number of accidents and deaths.
The plying of vehicles without fitness, nonstop driving, reckless driving, unskilled drivers, plying of slow-speed three-wheelers on highways, poor road conditions and speeding tendency of bus drivers to get more trips are the main reasons behind the accidents, the platform leader said.
The Samity also put forward some recommendations to reduce the road accidents. These include building National Road Safety Council as an effective body to check road crashes, setting up a driver training centre at the national level to create skilled drivers, auditing road safety regularly, arranging adequate quality transport to deal with overcrowding, arranging separate lanes for slow-moving and high-speeding vehicles on highways, implementing the government decision to stop the plying of battery-run vehicles on highways, repairing damaged roads, taking steps to stop the plying of risky vehicles and ensuring the movement of passersby through creating footpaths, underpasses and overpasses on highways.
Meanwhile, according to data by the Accident Research Institute (ARI) of BUET, 230 people on an average have been killed during the last seven Eids, including both Eid-ul-fitr and Eid-ul-adha.
The ARI data is based on a seven-day period—from three days before Eid to three days after— during each festival.
The data revealed that 1,613 people were killed in road accidents during the last seven Eid holidays.
During Eid-ul-fitr this year, 172 road accidents were reported and 216 people had died. Among these accidents, 50 took place before Eid and 122 after. As many as 72 people had died before Eid and the number doubled to 144 after the festival, the ARI data said.
During this time last year, at least 259 people were killed and 960 injured in 237 road accidents in 13 days (August 16, 2018-August28, 2019) according to a report of Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity.
Besides, 15 people were killed and seven others wounded in 19 incidents involving railways and four people were killed, 68 injured and eight remained missing in 14 accidents on waterways. – Staff Reporter
