In Bangladesh, the rapid rise in population and motorised vehicles together with the large scale shift of transport from other modes to road, without significant development of road traffic system, have generated enormous road safety and operational problems. The paper is concerned with the road safety problems and the issues relating to them. It briefly presents an overview of the past trends in the development of road transport system and the numbers of accidents and their resulting casualties. Some important characteristics of the accidents are discussed. Factors contributing to the accidents and the government's initiatives for their prevention are summarised. The paper also outlines outlines a strategy for systematic analysis of accidents in order to determine cost effective countermeasures to global and site specific accident problems. (A)
Abstract