At least 418 people were killed and 856 were injured in 443 road accidents across the country in the month of July this year.
Among these, 131 motorcycle accidents claimed 109 lives, which is the highest number of fatalities, accounting for 26.08 per cent of the total deaths.
Road Safety Foundation disclosed the information through a press release on Tuesday. The foundation compiled the report based on data from nine national dailies, seven online news portals, various electronic media, and their own sources.
According to the report, among the deceased 72 were women, which 17.22pc of the total fatalities, and 53 were children (12.67pc). During this period, 92 pedestrians were killed, making up 22 per cent of the total deaths, while 56 drivers and their assistants were killed , which is 13.4 per cent of deaths.
Besides, four waterway accidents claimed six lives, while 21 railway track accidents killed 18 people and injured seven.
In addition, Dhaka division recorded the highest number of accidents at 26.41 per cent while Mymensingh Division had the lowest at 7.22pc. A total of 105 people were killed in 117 accidents in Dhaka division while 19 died and 38 injured in 26 road accidents in the capital alone.
The foundation identified 11 primary causes for these accidents, including faulty vehicles, damaged roads, reckless speeding, drivers’ mindsets, lack of skill, slow-moving vehicles on highways, and reckless motorcycle driving by young people, weak traffic management, insufficient capacity of BRTA (Bangladesh Road Transport Authority), extortion in public transport.
Besides, the foundation also made some recommendations to reduce accidents, which includes increasing initiatives to train the drivers, enhancing BRTA’s capacity and strict enforcement of traffic laws for transport owners, workers, passengers, and pedestrians, banning slow-moving vehicles on highways and build separate service roads for them, stopping extortion in public transport, improving rail and waterways communication to reduce pressure on roads, enforcing the Road Transport Act-2018 without hindrance.