Improving Road Safety
in the OIC Member States
97
ARI is also involved in analysing accident data. The ability to understand road crash situations
and deliver effective road safety countermeasures is seriously limited by the lack of accurate
and comprehensive data on crashes. Accident and casualty data collection systems (police,
hospitals and insurance data) need to be strengthened and co-ordinated, involving different
agencies and research organisations.
9.9 Conclusions and Recommendations
In Bangladesh a number of initiatives have been taken to improve road safety in the country and
to reduce the number of accidents and related casualties and injuries which have a huge
economic impact.
Bangladesh could seriously benefit from an increased effort to improve road safety. A pre-
condition for making road safety effective is strong political commitment. The subject calls for
ownership at the highest political level and the will to place road safety on the political agenda.
To this end awareness is needed of the size and the nature of the problem.
The road safety initiatives would profit from a more holistic, integrated approach. Instead of
addressing individual measures by individual stakeholders, a more concerted action is needed.
Coordination and collaboration between the stakeholders is a must. The Strategic Accident
Reduction Programme (SARP) approach, as mentioned earlier, could support this, since it is
based on historical data and indicates the programme with the implementing authority.
An additional, related pre-condition is the availability of sufficient and stable funding to
implement road safetymeasures. Without political commitment, road safety funding will remain
a constant problem. Also part of an enabling environment is the development of an appropriate
legal framework, which includes seat-belt, child restraint, mobile phone legislation, vehicle
standards, and driver’s licenses and testing. Legislation only works if laws are properly
enforced. As this is a current weakness in Bangladesh, enforcement needs to be improved.
Budget should be allocated for road safety research, investigation and education for sustainable
and effective outcome.
Another crucial element is the ability to know the size and scope of the problem. To this end
crash data must be collected, recorded and stored in an accident database . Police must be trained
to fill in high-quality accident forms, that are then properly stored. This as input for accident
analysis that will be the basis for defining effective road safety measures. ARI is in a position to
facilitate this process, by both training police and carrying out accident data analysis.
Research should be the main prerequisite for any kind of transportation safety related activities
or improvement project. Nowadays, implementing bodies are planning and conducting activities
without proper study and coordination. As a result, projects are not sustainable or compatible.
Research should be mandatory and implementing bodies need to apply the outcome of research.
The National Road Safety Strategic Action Plans (NRSAPs, see Section 8.3), provide a good basis
for coordinating road safety activities amongst partners in Bangladesh. The shortcomings of the