A lot more needs to be done

According to the World Health Organisation's (WHO) Global Status Report on Road Safety 2013, road traffic injuries are the eighth leading cause of death globally, and the leading cause of death for young people aged 15–29 years. Approximately 1.24 million people die every year on the world's roads, and another 20 to 50 million sustain non-fatal injuries as a result of traffic accidents. 186,300 children die globally each year from road traffic crashes – that's more than 500 children every day and one every four minute. 

The cost of dealing with the consequences of these traffic crashes runs to billions of dollars. If urgent measures are not taken then road traffic deaths will become the fifth leading cause of death in the world by 2030. 

It is time for all the relevant stakeholders to join hands to further strengthen actions. This year, the Third UN Global Road Safety Week (May 4 – 10) seeks to highlight the need to ensure the safety of children on the roads through enforcement of laws and awareness programmes. It includes hundreds of events hosted by governments, international agencies, civil society organisations, and private companies and presenting the Child Declaration for Road Safety policy to policymakers. 

In March 2010, the United Nations General Assembly resolution 64/255 proclaimed a Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011–2020. The goal was to stabilise and reduce the forecasted level of road traffic fatalities around the world. The resolution calls upon member states to implement road safety activities, particularly in the areas of road safety management, road infrastructure, vehicle safety, road user behaviour, road safety education and the post-crash response. 

National targets relating to each area of activity should be set by individual member states. Thankfully, there is enough scientific evidence behind road safety interventions to support these targets. Adopting and enforcing legislation relating to important risk factors – enforcing speed limits, drunk-driving prosecution, and use of motorcycle helmets, seat-belts and child restraints – have shown significant reductions in road traffic injuries. Since 2008, 35 countries have passed new laws or amended existing legislation covering one or more of these risk factors. Nevertheless, in many countries these laws are either not comprehensive in scope or are lacking altogether. Governments must do more to ensure that their national road safety laws meet best practices. They must do more to enforce these laws.

In Bangladesh, deaths from road traffic crashes are notably high with an estimated fatality rate of 13.6 deaths per 100,000 people in 2013. For many years this issue did not receive enough attention in Bangladesh. However, Bangladesh has now adopted a National Road Safety Strategy and a National Road Safety Council to act as a lead agency and the target is to reduce fatality by 10 percent every year. WHO contributed to the development of the National Action plan for Road Safety in Bangladesh 2011-2020. It is estimated that the country's GDP loss due to road traffic crashes is 1.6 percent. However, Bangladesh is yet to formulate laws to address all five key risk factors and struggles to enforce those that exist.

As per the WHO Report on Road Safety 2013, Bangladesh has no child restraint law. Although laws exist to limit speed, against drunk-driving, to use helmet for both drivers and passengers, and to use seat-belt, these are not enforced strictly.

According to the same report, 41 percent of the road traffic deaths in Bangladesh occur among pedestrians. As the country continues to become highly motorised, safe walking and cycling need to be promoted as healthy and less expensive mobility options to successfully reduce the total number of road traffic accidents.

Although Bangladesh has made some progress toward road safety, faster and more concerted efforts are needed to prevent more lives from being needlessly lost on the roads. Against this backdrop, several steps can be taken. A comprehensive legislation can be passed that meets international best practices and addresses key risk factors to address this preventable cause of death, injury and disability. Sufficient financial and human resources can be invested in the enforcement of these laws as an essential component for their success. Public awareness needs to be created so that people understand and support such legislative change and enforcement of laws. Safer road infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists have to be ensured. Finally, non-motorised forms of transport, which can be integrated into a more sustainable and safer transport system, can be promoted. We need to do a lot more to reduce preventable deaths and injuries due to road traffic accidents in Bangladesh.

The writer is a World Health Organization (WHO) Representative to Bangladesh.