Motorcycle accidents killed 19.28% more people than previous year: Report

Casualties from bike accidents in Bangladesh increased by 19.28% compared with last year as 2,097 people were killed in 2,003 accidents till October this year.

Road Safety Foundation in a new report published the data on Sunday on motorcycle accidents in Bangladesh from January to October in 2022.

Last year, in the first 10 months 1,758 people were killed in 1,653 motorcycle accidents, it said.

In comparison this year the number of accidents rose by 21.17 percent during the period, it said

According to the report, 764 of the deceased were students, which account for 36.43 percent of total fatality and 4.38 percent were passersby who were hit by motorcycles.

Road Safety Foundation prepared the report based on the reports of nine national dailies, seven online news portals and electronic media.

Of the total accidents, 374 were head-on collision with other vehicles, in 629 incidents the motorcyclists lost control, in 958 cases the motorcycles were hit by other vehicles and 42 were other incidents.

In 837 cases out of these 2,097 accidents the motorcyclists were responsible for the occurrences, said the report.

The group’s observation and analysis says 879 accidents occurred on regional roads, 695 on national highways and 102 on village roads.

Most of the accidents occurred at morning and night, 26.80 percent and 23.36 percent respectively, according to RSF analysis.

RSF mentions reckless driving by youths, teens, availability of high-speed motorcycles, lax traffic management, incoherence in surveillance, reckless speed of all vehicles, unskilled drivers, trend of not following traffic rules by motorcyclists, language used in advertisements to encourage youths for overspeed, lack of dividers on roads and highways, and a political backing to create a culture of reckless motorcycle driving as the main reasons of the rise in accidents.

The group in its report recommended strict measures to stop reckless driving by youths and controlling sales of high-speed vehicles.

It also suggested strict enforcement of traffic laws, constructing service roads on highways for motorcycles and low-speed vehicles, road dividers on all highways in phases, use of technology to monitor and control speed.

RSF recommends motorcycling should be discouraged by improving and making public transport more accessible to stop such unfortunate deaths on roads.