Over-speeding: 60% of road accident victims are pedestrians

Excessive speed is one of the major causes of road accidents killing a significant number of people in Bangladesh every year, and data says 60% of pedestrians fell prey to over-speeding in 2022 alone.

Controlling speed of the vehicles by formulating and implementing guidelines is the key to reduce road accidents and fatalities, experts suggest.  

According to the Road Safety Foundation, an organisation working on prevention of the road accidents, 1,627 pedestrians were killed in road accidents in 2022. 48.74% of them had to fall prey to accidents while walking on the streets and 51.25% while crossing the road. 59.78% of accidents took place due to the reckless speed of vehicles.

Kazi Mohammad Shifun Newaz, Assistant Professor of Accident Research Institute, at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) told The Business Standard, "By analyzing the police data from 1998 to 2016, we found that about 82% road accidents occur due to excessive speed and reckless driving. To prevent this, speed limits should be imposed on every road after a scientific study that will evaluate what the speed limit should be on a respective road and guidelines should also be made regarding this.

"According to the guidelines, speed limits should be imposed on the roads and monitoring should be done to enforce it. Enforcement should be ensured in engineering ways and by law enforcement agency. `Speed governor seals' on vehicles can be made mandatory so that no driver can drive at excess speed'', he added.

Last Saturday (February 11), a pedestrian named Bhushan Mandal was killed and 4 others seriously injured in a fatal road accident at Baburbari on Khulna-Mongla highway in Rampal upazila of Bagerhat.

According to witnesses and police sources, the deceased Bhushan Mandal was crossing the highway in Baburbari area, while a Khulna-bound private car running at reckless speed, and hit Bhushan Mandal along with a battery-powered three-wheeler. The private car and three-wheeler were overturned and five commuters sustained serious injuries. The injured were rushed to nearby Rampal Upazila Health Complex where Bhushan Mandal was declared dead.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), speed management is important for addressing pedestrian safety around the world. Key measures for managing speed include setting speed limits to 30–40 km/h in residential and high pedestrian traffic areas, enforcing traffic rules on speed limits and implementing traffic-calming measures. These measures are examined in detail in the Module.

A 5% cut in average speed can reduce the risk of fatal crashes by up to 30%, said WHO.

Reduction of speed limit, European Road Safety Decision Support System, said, speed and road safety are inversely correlated. Speed limit reduction has a significant positive impact on road safety. Studies observed a decrease of fatal crashes, of serious injuries, and also of other kinds of injuries. The effects seem larger for a high level of initial speed than for a low level. No evidence of negative effects of speed limit reduction has been found.

According to the report of the Road Safety Foundation, pedestrians are more injured due to the push and pull of vehicles in the capital. These accidents happened more at night and early in the morning. Due to the lack of a bypass road, heavy vehicles transporting goods move at reckless speed in the capital from 10 pm to dawn, resulting frequent road accident that kill pedestrians regularly.

Saidur Rahman, Executive Director at Road Safety Foundation told TBS, "Roads have been expanded and modernized across the country. As a result, the speed of the vehicles has increased. But we don't have the technical capability to control this speed. There is no desire to create this capability also. That's why we are not installing speed cameras and adopting other technical issues. Therefore, accidents are happening on almost all the roads and highways. It is important to increase technical capacity in speed monitoring and controlling to minimize accidents."

In 2015, the National Road Safety Council set the maximum speed limit for vehicles on the country's highways at 80 km per hour. The highway police are also using speed gun technology to a limited extent so that no vehicle can move more than the prescribed speed on these roads. However, many roads in the country still do not have any system to control over-speeding of vehicles.

Amrita Sutradhar, assistant superintendent of police of Narayanganj Highway Circle of Gazipur Region, told TBS that they are filing around 5-7 cases of over-speeding per day. "In most cases, we found private cars crossing the speed limit of 80 kilometers per hour, while in some cases those reached 140km per hour," he added.

"The radar guns to check speed don't work in the dark, so we cannot stop speeding vehicles during the night time," Amrita added.