Road crashes claim 12000 every year: Experts

Guests at a meeting of Society for Road Safety Professionals, an independent body of professionals involved in the promotion of road safety, at the Centre of Injury Prevention and Research, Bangladesh (CIPRB) in the city on Monday.
Photo: STAR

Bangladesh is one of the worst sufferers of road accident with at least 12,000 deaths a year, experts said at a meeting on Monday.
Road accidents claim lives on the same scale as malaria and tuberculosis, and the loss is at least 2 percent of the GDP, they added.
The Society for Road Safety Professionals, an independent body of professionals involved in the promotion of road safety in Bangladesh, held the meeting at the Centre of Injury Prevention and Research, Bangladesh (CIPRB.
About 1.3 million people are killed in road accidents across the globe each year, a toll set to increase to 2.4 million by 2030 while around 85% of the fatalities occur in low and middle-income countries, according to a World Health Organisation study.
Prof MQK Talukder, eminent child specialist, chaired the discussion while National Professor Dr MR Khan was the chief guest.
Prof ANM Saleh, Dr Md Siraj-ul-Islam, Engineer Md Hasan Reza, Engineer Habibur Rahman, Prof Dr Md Mazharul Hoque, Rafiqul Islam Sarkar, Maj General Md Anwar Hossain, Dr AKM Fazlur Rahman and actor Ilias Kanchan were present on the occasion.
S Ispahani from the FIA Foundation, UK was also present to integrate the country programme with the global road safety initiatives.
The speakers said the problem of road traffic injury is a global epidemic and needs a global solution. They emphasised the significance of the first Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety, which will be held in Moscow in November this year.
Make Roads Safe, a global road safety campaign that was instrumental in securing the Ministerial Conference, is calling upon the governments to commit to the 'Decade of Action for Road Safety' (2010 2020). The action plan targets a 50 percent reduction in deaths in road accidents globally by 2020.
The conference in Moscow, requested by the UN General Assembly, represents a historic opportunity for Bangladesh to make progress on this important public health problem, the speakers added.