At least 125,405 people have been killed in 72,736 road accidents over the past 13 years, and at least 176,249 injured in the same period, the Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity (Bangladesh Passenger Welfare Association) has said.
The association claimed the death toll is higher than the number killed over the same period in the wars being fought around the world, including Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Palestine.
The association’s secretary general, Mozammel Haque Chowdhury, gave the figures in a message sent to the media on Wednesday morning (21 October) to mark National Safe Road Day 2026. The message said that, according to reports published in the media from 2014 to 30 June 2026, a period of more than a decade, 72,736 road accidents killed 125,405 people and injured 176,249. The association gathers its figures only by monitoring the media, it said, but the picture in the country’s hospitals shows the number of casualties is several times higher.
The death toll on Bangladesh’s roads over that period is higher than the number killed in the wars under way around the world, including Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Palestine, it said. The association believes reckless road infrastructure development that ignores strategic transport planning, and the mistaken policy of making people wholly dependent on roads instead of building a three-way transport system, have greatly increased road accidents. In the message, Mozammel Haque Chowdhury said that before independence the country’s main means of travel was the waterways, followed by the railways. About 80 percent of people travelled by these two safe and affordable routes, and only 20 percent by road, so road accidents were also limited to 20 percent. After independence, he said, under donors such as the World Bank and the IMF, with a mindset of binding the country in debt, and in the name of development and reform, government agencies looted without restraint, extortion in transport ran unchecked, and instead of building a multi-modal transport system the rail and waterways were shrunk while new roads were built and widened one after another, bringing 80 percent of travel onto the roads. As a result of government corruption and wrong policy, road accidents also rose by 80 percent. So all past governments must take responsibility for the killing on the roads, he said.
Mozammel Haque Chowdhury said the huge number of road deaths was caused by the previous Awami League government’s boundless irregularities, corruption and mismanagement in the road sector; reckless extortion and lawlessness by transport owners, workers and some corrupt police officers; disorder on the roads; unfit vehicles running freely; unlicensed and underage drivers; construction faults in roads; driving under the influence of drugs; reckless speed; fitness certificates given to unfit vehicles; licences given to unqualified drivers; and vehicles handed to unlicensed, untrained drivers, among other causes. He said that although Bangladesh has moved forward in many sectors since independence, a long lack of far-sighted leadership in transport meant that, instead of increasing the use of safe waterways and railways, roads were widened one after another, investment and use of roads grew, and no integrated public transport system was built, so the pressure fell entirely on the roads. Mass transit on the roads did not grow to match, and no dedicated bus network could be built.
Mozammel Haque Chowdhury also said that for lack of good public transport people’s daily journeys have become an ordeal. Taking advantage of this severe transport crisis, battery-run autorickshaws, ride-sharing motorcycles, CNG-run autorickshaws, locally made nosimon and korimon vehicles, and Mahindra, Piaggio and pickup vans made in a neighbouring country and converted into leguna passenger carriers are being used to carry passengers, which has sharply increased traffic congestion and accidents.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report