Bangladesh’s highest policymaking body for road safety has failed to convene for nearly four years, brazenly ignoring a statutory mandate to meet at least twice annually.
The paralysis comes at a devastating cost: traffic collisions continue to claim thousands of lives, and the nation’s strategic road safety action plan has expired without a replacement in sight.
The National Road Safety Council (NRSC) last met on 15 November 2022 and has remained entirely dormant through consecutive political transitions.
It was not reconvened during the interim administration led by Professor Muhammad Yunus following the fall of the Awami League government, nor has the BNP administration, which assumed office in February, taken steps to reconstitute the body.
Under existing regulations, the council is legally required to meet every six months, or whenever its chairman deems necessary.
Ex-officio chaired by the Minister for Road Transport and Bridges, the panel comprises over 40 high-level figures, including the ministers for shipping, home affairs, and local government, alongside senior parliamentary members, ministry secretaries, police chiefs, civil society figures, transport owners, and union representatives.
As the government’s apex forum on transport safety, the council holds sole responsibility for approving national policies, charting short- and long-term action plans, and coordinating inter-ministerial strategy.
Its prolonged inactivity leaves the country’s primary policymaking apparatus completely unmanned at a time of escalating crisis.
A spiralling human toll
Figures compiled by the Road Safety Foundation reveal a dramatic collapse in highway safety over the past five years. In 2020, Bangladesh recorded 4,735 collisions resulting in 5,431 deaths and 7,379 injuries.
By 2025, annual crashes had escalated by 60.2 per cent to 7,584, while fatalities surged by 35.5 per cent to 7,359. Non-fatal injuries more than doubled, soaring by 123.3 per cent to 16,476.
Recent monthly figures illustrate the ongoing carnage. In September alone, 442 road crashes claimed 423 lives and injured 674 people, an average of over 14 deaths every single day.
“The National Road Safety Council effectively ceased to function following the fall of the previous regime,” said Saidur Rahman, executive director of the Road Safety Foundation.
“I urged the interim government to reconstitute the council, but no action was taken. The subsequent administration has not revived it either. When the council fails to meet for years on end, it reveals a complete absence of governmental commitment to tackling this crisis,” he said.
Policy vacuum and target deficits
Bangladesh has formulated strategic road safety frameworks since 1997, completing eight iterations.
The Eighth National Road Safety Strategic Action Plan (2017-2020) aimed to halve crashes, fatalities, and injuries in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, a target the country failed to meet.
Following the UN’s declaration of a second Decade of Action for Road Safety (2021–2030), the NRSC approved the National Road Safety Strategic Action Plan 2021–2024 during its last meeting in late 2022. The plan targeted a 25 per cent crash reduction by 2024 and a 50 per cent drop by 2030.
However, that roadmap quietly lapsed at the end of 2024. Without a successor document, the nation possesses no formal roadmap or monitoring mechanism to achieve its 2030 international commitments.
While Road Transport Minister Sheikh Robiul Alam recently asserted that Bangladesh could still halve road casualties by 2030 through enhanced enforcement, emergency care, and driver education, experts remain highly skeptical.
Hasib Mohammad Ahsan, director of the Accident Research Institute at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet), questioned the baseline for such claims.
“The government pledges to halve deaths by 2030, but which organisation’s data will it use to benchmark progress?” Ahsan asked, pointing out that discrepancies between police figures, ministry logs, and civil society databases remain unresolved.
“Declarations on paper mean nothing without clear institutional accountability and measurable metrics.”
Institutional divisions over proposed new authority
Amid the policy vacuum, the government is drafting fresh legislation to establish a dedicated Road Safety Authority, replacing the framework currently managed under the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA).
Anisur Rahman, additional secretary at the Road Transport and Highways Division, confirmed that draft legislation is under review.
“We are preparing a comprehensive new road safety law under which the council’s functions will transition to a revamped institutional framework,” he said, though he declined to comment on why the NRSC had been allowed to lie dormant for nearly four years.
Under the proposed law, the new authority would set up district-level offices across Bangladesh to directly enforce standards, a move prompted by widespread sentiment that the BRTA and the Roads and Highways Department have failed to stem the ongoing highway crisis.
However, deep divisions have emerged within the ministry. Opponents argue that creating another statutory body will merely generate administrative overlap and expense, contending that the government should instead reform and empower the existing BRTA.
Proponents insist that only an independent, dedicated agency free from the BRTA’s traditional licensing duties can focus single-mindedly on saving lives.
As bureaucratic debates rumble on and draft legislation remains stalled in review, Bangladesh enters another year without a functioning safety council or active national action plan, leaving drivers and pedestrians to navigate one of the world’s deadliest road networks entirely unguided.
