The Daily Morning Voice Online Desk: As many as 3,091 people have been died in 2,973 motorcycle accidents that occurred in the country in 2022, which is 40.07% of the total 7,713 people deaths in 6,829 road accidents in said year. The accidents also left 12,615 people injured, said a report by the Road Safety Foundation (RSF), a non-government organisation released on Saturday. The report states that among those who died in road accidents in 2022, 1,061 were women and 1,143 were children.

The report based on data from nine national dailies, seven online news portals, and electronic media, the foundetoin said. Road accidents also claimed the lives of 1,627 pedestrians last year, added the RSF report. A total of 326 people were killed and 113 injured in 354 rail accidents. Besides, some 319 people were killed, 73 injured and 92 went missing in 197 riverine accidents during the same period. The availability of motorcycles is one of the main reasons behind the increase in accidents according to the organisations working on road safety.

Motorcycles are becoming an alternative due to the lack of importance given to public transport. It will increase the number of accidents in the future. Motorcycle riding with passengers on the highway should be completely discouraged.  According to the figures of the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA), the number of registered motorcycles was below 1.5 million in the country as of 2015. But, the number is around 3.6 million now. More than 300,000 motorcycles have been registered every year since 2016. In most cases it is seen that the motorcycle riders are not abiding by the rules while driving in highways, local routes and rural roads. The law of not riding more than two people on a motorcycle is ignored. Even unregistered motorcycles are quite common on the roads at district and upazila level. Many of the riders do not have any training to ride a motorcycle.