In the world, one person is killed every 25 seconds by road accidents. Only 28 countries, (seven per cent of the world's population), have adequate laws that address all five risk factors (speed, drunk driving, helmets, seat-belts and child restraints).

From January to July 2018, 2471 people died on road in Bangladesh. Among the victims, 70% are pedestrians. Popular notion is that drivers are responsible for such accidents by speeding and reckless driving for competing with each other. Besides reckless driving, overtaking tendency, lack of using foot over bridges by pedestrians, lack of traffic responsibility of passengers are some of the core causes of road accidents.

Study shows that the major causes of road accidents all over the world and also applicable for Bangladesh are

Speeding: many drivers in the highway often drive over 80km in Bangladesh. We need to remember, the faster we drive, the slower our reaction time will be if we need to prevent an auto accident.

Running red lights: Drivers often tend not to stop by the red lights in the absence of the traffic police that increases the chances of road accidents.

Design defects: Automobile consists of hundreds of part and defects in any of the parts may cause accidents.

Unsafe lane change: In Bangladesh, often vehicles change lane without using turn signals, check blind spots and not proceed into the next lane carefully.

Wrong way driving: Particularly to avoid traffic jam, drivers in Bangladesh take the wrong way for driving, which may have dangerous consequences.

For car accidents, Thailand, Malawi and Liberia ranked as the top three countries in the world. All of the three countries had limited implementations of relevant laws and policies. At the same time, drunk driving and speeding are the most common causes of road accidents in Thailand. Lack of vehicle fitness and limited training of the drivers were the core causes of increased road accidents in Malawi. Overtaking tendency, speeding and limited education of the drivers on the traffic rules were found to be major causes of accidents in Malawi.

On the other hand, Norway and Sweden-- two of the countries with safest road implemented strategies for achieving ‘vision zero’-- that targets for no one should be killed or receive long term disability by road accidents.

Vision zero is the target of European Union (EU) that states “by 2050, move close to zero fatalities in road transport. In line with this goal, the EU aims at halving road casualties by 2020. Make sure that the EU is a world leader in safety and security of transport in all modes of transport.”

Vision zero is based on three dimensions- 1. Ethics- people should not have to die in traffic. The basic principle is that peoples’ deaths are unacceptable even if they acted foolish. 2. Responsibility- system designers must realize that people make mistakes. Those who plan and build roads and vehicle must take responsibilities for people making mistakes and show tolerance to human failure.

Thus, planners and builders are responsible for controlling speed limits of the vehicle 3. Solution- finding combinations that work. Ensuring road safety depends on both drivers and passengers. It also demands road users to be both well-informed and encouraged. And proper laws and technology should be implemented to remind us to do the right thing.

The basic difference from the traditional approach to the  ‘vision zero’ is that traditional approaches emphasize on ‘ efficiency before safety’ whereas ‘vision zero’ emphasizes on ‘safety before efficiency’. That means that the traditional approaches focus on system strengthening for ensuring human safety, while ‘vision zero’ advocates for adapting the systems for falling humans.

By implementing the ‘vision zero’ strategy Norway could reduce the number of road accidents from 34% to 20% in the urban areas from 2006 to 2015. In Sweden, road fatalities was decreased by 2.4 from 8 per 100 000 population from 2000 to 2016 by adopting ‘vision zero’ strategy.

The ‘vision zero’ strategy documents reveals the statistics from road accidents, specifies responsibilities and performance indicator. This document also mentions measures related to injury, land use planning, approaches, aim and challenges related to road safety in next ten years.

In Bangladesh we have National Road Safety Strategic Action Plan Bangladesh 2014-16 and Bus Rapid Transit law 2016. The Action Plan mentions the stakeholders and their possible roles for ensuring road safety. However, there are neither any statistics of road accidents nor any targets for reducing the accidents. Also, specific approaches, measures related to injuries and performance indicators are missing there.

Hence, with identifying the gaps in the strategies, we also need to take into account the dilemmas and challenges the developing countries like Bangladesh may face for adopting and implementing any ambitious strategies like ‘vision zero’. As formulation and implementation of these strategies involves huge expenses that could mean to cut off other vital budget for health or from any other vital sectors. Though, undoubtable we need to adopt strategies like ‘vision zero’ in future, currently, short term measures like constructions of adequate speed breakers, measures to check speed limit, specific place for dropping the passengers, allowing a fixed number of passenger in each public transportation could reduce the number of road accidents in Bangladesh. Most importantly, no vehicles should be allowed to drive without having proper fitness certificate and the license of the drivers. At the same time, good governance should be promoted and job opportunities in Bangladesh should be increased so that nobody is compelled to bribe for getting a job as driver without having a driving license.  

The writer is a Ph D researcher, University of Dhaka