Popular actor and road safety advocate Ilias Kanchan said proper repairing and renovation of many faulty parts of Dhaka-Aricha Highway have reduced road disasters on the highway significantly.
The highway once was in a dilapidated condition and dotted with big potholes, he added.
He said, “Like Dhaka-Aricha Highway, if country’s all national highways and roads are repaired and renovated in a planned way the trend of such frequent road accident will come down.”
He made the comments at a press conference at National Press Club in the city on Saturday.
“The road crash took a serious turn last year as it claimed at least 4356 people and injured 6953 others in 4702 separate accidents across the country,” Kanchan, also President of Nirapad Sarak Chai said.
Kanchan said, “Road accident happens most of time for unawareness of people. All should be more aware and engaged in the movement against road crash. Nirapad Sarak Chai movement is going on all over the country from top to grassroots.”
“In the year 2019 at least 2661 road walkers died, which is 50.04pc of total deaths due to accidents. Road walkers died due to unawareness of traffic rules, using mobile phones in roads, not using of zebra crossing, underpass and foot over bridge and parking vehicles here and there,” he added.
He mentioned a statistics showing that the number of deaths by road accidents reduced more in last year than any period. In the year 2017 the road accidents took at least 5645 lives which came down to 5227 in 2019.
Cine actor Ilias Kanchan urged journalists to keep up publishing and telecasting contents on anti-road accident campaign.
