On the 17 days of this year’s Eid Yatra (April 4-20), an average of 19 people died in road accidents every day.
Despite various preparations of Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) to ensure a safe and orderly Eid journey, the number of people killed in road accidents this Eid has increased by 18.75 percent compared to the last Eid, said BRT Chairman Noor Mohammad Majumdar.
On the 17 days of this year’s Eid Yatra (April 4-20), an average of 19 people died in road accidents every day. And last Eid, an average of 16 people died a day.
On Sunday (April 21), the chairman of the organization read a written statement on behalf of BRTA at a press conference in Banani, capital.
He said that although the number of accidents has not increased compared to last year, deaths have increased. Last year, 239 were killed and 510 injured in 253 road accidents in 15 days of Eid Yatra.
This time, before Eid, BRTA made various preparations for a smooth Eid journey. These included solutions for traffic jams on the country’s roads and highways, control of bikes, three-wheeled human haulers and illegal vehicles not allowed on the roads, no passengers in freight vehicles, suspension of trucks, covered vans and lorries on highways for three days before and after Eid. Strict monitoring system.
However, even after all this, an accident occurred on the road.
In response to the question of who is responsible for these accidents, the Chairman of BRTA admitted that all the parties including BRTS are responsible for the accidents.
“We are continuing our efforts. Regular mobile courts are now being run to control accidents,” he said.
However, he claimed that accidents cannot be controlled due to lack of awareness.
Regarding the causes of the accident, the report says – loss of control of the vehicle due to carelessness of the driver, excessive and reckless speeding, careless/risky overtaking by the driver, carelessness of pedestrians and crossing the road at random, illegal movement of vehicles including three-wheelers and easy bikes, Nasimon, Karimon on the highway, Lack of awareness of motorcyclists including not following traffic laws properly, not obeying traffic signs, road markings etc. on highways, illegal parking on highways, carelessness of drivers while entering the main road from side roads and not having dividers on two-way roads.
The BRTA chairman said that only applying the law will not bring the expected results in dealing with multi-dimensional problems like road accidents.
Referring to the lack of manpower, the BRTA chief said, “We have only 8 magistrates. So it is not possible to take action against lakhs of transporters across the country.”
“A social movement has to be built. Everyone has to fulfill this responsibility from their respective places. Everyone has to obey the law on the roads,” he added.
The chairman also said that to stop illegal, expired and unlicensed motor vehicles and drivers without driving license on the road, the police department, highway police, road transport owners and workers with the cooperation of all concerned have taken initiatives to increase surveillance and conduct regular operations on the roads.
The problem will be solved within the next month. After that, motor vehicles without expired and route permit will be considered unfit and will be sent to dumping if such transport is found, he said.
In the 17 days of Idyatra this year, 286 road accidents took place across the country; An average of 17 accidents occurred every day. In addition to the death of 320 people, 462 people were injured. On an average, 27 people are injured every day.
This time the most people died in road accidents in Dhaka Division – 73 people, and the least number of people died in Sylhet Division – 17 people.
Motorcycles were the victims of most road accidents – 117 or 28.61 percent. After that 77 buses or minibuses were victims of accidents.
