Can we ever have safe travels?

Every Eid in Bangladesh turns into an unhappy memory for those who lose their loved ones in transportation-related incidents. According to the Road Safety Foundation’s (RSF) latest calculations, at least 131 people were reportedly killed in road crashes across the country between May 24 and 30 of the Eid-ul-Azha holidays. On Eid day alone, around 300 injured people were admitted to the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation (Nitor). Going through the news, one feels overwhelmed by reports of not only road crashes, but also of deaths and injuries caused by other transport-related incidents. On May 25, a trawler capsized and sank in the Meghna River, resulting in the deaths of three people, including a son and father. On May 27, three people died in two separate incidents when riding on the roofs of trains while travelling home for Eid.

While there is always an uptick in road crashes during the country’s two biggest festivals, with millions leaving and returning to a heavily centralised Dhaka, transport-related deaths and injuries have been the norm in Bangladesh for a long time. At the beginning of the year, the RSF revealed that at least 7,359 people were killed in road crashes in 2025, while another 16,476 were injured. Waterway and railway incidents amounted to 627 deaths collectively.

It is never a surprise for the authorities that roads will be heavily occupied during Eid. It is also not a surprise why hundreds of people die on our roads each year. Should we pretend that it is not the authorities and their own system which allow unfit vehicles, unqualified drivers, and unmonitored highways to take the lives of so many? What keeps the BRTA from ensuring that old, broken vehicles are not allowed to ply the roads? What stops the authorities from ensuring that trains are not overloaded? How are unfit water vehicles allowed to operate until they eventually cause innocent citizens to drown? Why is it that going from point A to point B in this country is a life-threatening venture?

When talking to this newspaper, the additional inspector general of police (highway) said, “If we could enforce stricter control over vehicle speeds, road safety would improve further.” We must ask why someone in a position of authority to enforce stricter control over vehicle speeds feels powerless to actually do so. Any person with an ounce of empathy would say that our transport sector needs a complete overhaul. We urge the government to reach this conclusion too, and soon. It is abnormal for any country to be so unresponsive year on year to thousands of preventable deaths.