Credible data vital for road safety

The World Bank, in a recent appraisal report prepared for financing a road safety project in Bangladesh, observed that unreliable and poor-quality data on road accidents, deaths and injuries impede road safety management in Bangladesh. The report also mentioned that our current system of recording and analysing data on road accidents is error-prone, cumbersome and time-consuming, and thus unfit for analysis and benchmarking. We should take these observations made by the World Bank seriously, especially given the alarming rise in road accidents across the country.

There are many reasons for the persistence of road accidents—including non-implementation of the road safety law, absence of proper traffic management, and the lack of accountability in the transport sector, to name a few. But a fair assessment of the danger we face is not possible without reliable data. Reportedly, while governments in developed countries rely mainly on police data on road accidents, in Bangladesh we can't really depend on such data since, as per World Bank, the data prepared by police is irregular and incomplete. These are not recorded following a consistent procedure either.

Whenever we want to check the numbers of crashes and fatalities on a year-on-year basis, we need to look at different sources rather than relying on police data, which is unfortunate. While police mainly record road accident data from the First Information Reports (FIRs) or General Dairies (GDs), road safety campaigners source their information from media reports. So, there is a significant gap in the numbers recorded by them. In both cases, many incidents remain unrecorded.

For example, the World Bank has compared the fatalities recorded by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the police from 2010 to 2015, and found 90 percent discrepancy between their data sets. While, according to police data, 2,463 people were killed in road accidents in 2016, the WHO estimate put the number at 24,954. Such a shockingly huge difference in numbers is concerning, because without the real numbers, the authorities cannot take informed decisions and make policies to improve road safety.

Therefore, to make our roads safer and remove the chaos in the transport sector, we need to make changes in every step of the process. Having proper data should be the first step. To ensure this, our police force should develop an effective system of recording and analysing the data. As people in the rural areas do not often report incidents of road accidents, they must be made aware to do so. In fact, the law must specify how and where to report the cases.

We think the World Bank has expressed some valid concerns here. The authorities should look into them and take necessary steps, so we can have authentic data and proper planning for better road safety management.