At least 360 students were killed and 109 injured in 320 road crashes across Bangladesh between January and June this year, according to the Bangladesh Passenger Welfare Association, which compiled the figures from media reports.
The association’s secretary general, Md. Mozammel Haque Chowdhury, released the data in a statement on Saturday (July 11) marking the 15th anniversary of the Mirsharai tragedy. He said the country had failed to run regular road-safety awareness programs for students, teachers and guardians after that disaster, and that students were dying on the roads every year as a result. Building awareness among students, he said, could help create safer roads and a more disciplined nation.
On July 11, 2011, a minitruck carrying students from several schools in Chattogram’s Mirsharai upazila lost control and plunged into a ditch, killing 45 people – the deadliest single road crash in the country’s history. No student road-safety awareness program was taken up after the tragedy, Chowdhury said, and awareness had not grown among students and parents.
By the association’s count, there were 57 crashes in January that killed 57 students and injured 22; 39 crashes in February (47 killed, 11 injured); 59 in March (67 killed, 1 injured); 51 in April (56 killed, 25 injured); 61 in May (73 killed, 23 injured); and 53 in June (60 killed, 27 injured).
The association put forward five recommendations to reduce road deaths: including road-safety awareness lessons in textbooks; holding a monthly hour-long road-safety session for all students with experts; marking zebra crossings at every crossing point on national and regional highways, especially where students cross, and putting up institution signboards; deploying “road safety guards” with red flags to help students cross highways near their schools; and forming a road-safety committee of students and teachers at every institution.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report