Improving Road Safety
in the OIC Member States
92
types of road while the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) is responsible for
other three road types. The network comprises some 3 812 km of highways, main or national
roads (1.2 %); 17,488 km of regional and zilla roads (5.4 %) and 304,379 km of other roads (93
%)8. Of the total road network, 65.5% are unpaved. The general condition of the road network
in Bangladesh is considered poor. One of the main issues of having safe roads is the maintenance
of roads (Mazharul Hogue & Salehin, 2013; Sohel Mahmud et al., 2009). There are regular
inspections of existing road infrastructure but road maintenance is not always carried out and
roads tend to become more dangerous. It has been reported that the construction of new roads
has a high priority, whereas road maintenance is given low priority (Sohel Mahmud et al., 2013).
Design standards do not seem to be road safety driven, as road construction follows standard
geometrics with little concern for road safety. Road safety does not feature explicitly in either
the standards or the design process. It should be noted that safety manuals, handbooks and
guidelines have been developed, including the Road Safety Geometric Design Manual, the Road
Safety Engineering Toolkit, the Pavement Design Guide, A Guide for Safer Road Design, often as
part of international technical assistance projects. These manuals and guidelines are not
structurally applied. As mentioned earlier, a significant concern is that the manuals are not
tailored to the situation in Bangladesh and are based on international guidelines and standards.
Some aspects related to road construction and maintenance need to be highlighted for a better
understanding of road safety in Bangladesh.
 Firstly, national highways and regional highways are constructed by RHD by following design
and construction standards as far as possible. But during construction, local people or road
side dwellers occupy the land adjacent to the new road for business purposes. In those
occupied spaces, inhabitants build different permanent or temporary structures, such as
houses, markets, mosques, restaurants, etc. All those facilities need access, which is taken
from the national highway by driveway or direct connection. Within a very short period, a
previously rural area is transformed into a ribbon development sub-urban area with lots of
human activity. This obviously affects the road safety situation once highway construction is
completed. It also limits the scope for future widening or safety works due to the land
scarcity. To date, the Government does not have any specific policy to control the road-side
land use management.
 Secondly, maintenance is often not carried out in an optimal way. Functional capacity, safety
and service life of a pavement depends on how quickly a crack or damage can be identified
and fixed. By addressing a small crack or damage at an early stage, larger damage, such as big
pot holes and shoulder damage can be avoided. To do so, regular inspection andmaintenance
is essential; however, this is often absent. Road damage is often fixed when roads are
deteriorated to such an extent that road rehabilitation is needed, at much higher costs. LGED
and other local government authorities, such as union parisod and paurosova, construct
village roads of Bangladesh. In this case, LGED usually allocates the funds, although the local
8 Roads and Highway Department and Local Government Engineering Department