Improving Road Safety
in the OIC Member States
96
As mentioned above, there are national speed limits and drink-driving and motorcycle helmet
laws. However, enforcement of these laws is poor. Also mentioned is that laws on seat belts and
using child restraints are lacking.
Incompetent drivers and widespread driving with fake driver licenses appears to be a major
concern for road safety in Bangladesh. Strict licensing requirements are critically important.
Effective driver testing, good control and registration of driving schools are priority
requirements10. However, enforcement of these aspects is poor and this gives the wrong
message to the public, more specifically that road safety is not important and that disobeying
traffic rules and regulations and driving without a valid licence has limited or no repercussions.
9.7 Post-crash Response
Post-crash (emergency) response is not well organised in Bangladesh. There is no national
emergency access number, although emergency numbers are published and made available to
the general public. Bangladesh has no emergency room injury surveillance system.
Furthermore, there is a lack of ambulances. The Highway Police, for example, only has two
ambulances to cover the full network11.
Knowing that time between injury and initial stabilisation is the single most important factor in
patient survival, organising prompt emergency assistance and efficient trauma care
management are essential in mitigating the injury effects of road crashes. At present there is
little evidence of effective trauma care management in Bangladesh.
9.8 Data Collection and Accident Reporting
According to a number of key stakeholders in the process (BRTA, ARI) the data collection and
accident reporting process is not functioning optimally in Bangladesh. This is also reflected by
the WHO Annual Reports, in which the reported road traffic fatalities are estimated to be under-
registered by almost a factor 10 (from 2,538 to 21,316 in the 2015 report), indicating serious
under-reporting and/or crash registration.
According to S.M. Sohel Mahmud et al., the Road Traffic Accident database is neither complete
nor entirely an accurate record of all road accidents. Since the end of the technical support by
DFID to BRTA in early 2005, the BRTA has not had the means to continue with the training of
the police on the collection and entry of road traffic accident statistics. Due to lack of continued
training and monitoring, the level of under-reporting has increased particularly injury and
property damage only accidents. Simultaneously, the quality of the reported data has also
deteriorated. ARI is making an effort to reduce this problem through training of police
personnel, particularly those that are responsible for the data recording and storing in different
police stations, providing technical support and continuous monitoring and guidance.
10 Md. Mazharul Hoque, 2014.s
11 As indicated above, the highway network has a size of 3,812 kilometres.