Road crashes kill 439 in November alone: Report

The number of road crashes and casualties on Bangladesh's roads and highways marked a sharp rise in November last as 439 people were killed and 682 others injured in 417 accidents during the month, reports UNB.

Besides, at least three people were killed and eight others injured in four waterway accidents while 32 killed and seven injured in 29 train accidents during the period.

Road Safety Foundation (RSF), an organisation working to ensure safer roads, came up with the statistics in its fresh report on Saturday.

The report was prepared based on accident news carried by in seven national dailies, five online news portals and electronic media.

As per the RSF report, 383 people were killed in 314 accidents in October last.

Motorcycle accidents turned out to be the deadliest ones as those are alone responsible for the death of 141 people, which is 32.11 per cent of the total deaths.

The total number of motorcycle crashes was 128 in the last month which is 30,69 per cent of the total accidents.

According to the RSF data, at least 116 pedestrians were killed in the road accidents which account for 26.42 per cent of the total deaths.

Some 49 drivers and their assistants were also subjected to the road fatalities which is 11.16 per cent of the total deaths.

The Dhaka division witnessed the highest number of accidents with 128 deaths from 111 crashes while Sylhet experienced the lowest number of crashes and casualties with 14 deaths from 22 accidents.

The RSF pointed out 10 major reasons behind the increasing trend of road accidents.

The reasons include faulty vehicles, reckless driving, desperate mentality, incompetence and illness of drivers unsettled wages and working hours, movement of low-speed vehicles on the highways, reckless motorcycling by youths, the tendency of flouting traffic rules among people, poor management of traffic, lack of efficiency of BRTA, and extortion in the transport sector.

The RSF urged the authorities concerned to address the issues and take necessary initiatives to fix those.