288 Lives Lost on Sylhet's Roads in Nine Months: The Toll Keeps Rising
As many as 288 people have lost their lives on the roads of Sylhet in just nine months. The alarming figure has emerged in published accounts — with the year's end still ahead, the death toll from road crashes across the division has already approached three hundred.
Averaged out, the figure means some 32 people have died on Sylhet's roads every month. In other words, news of a death has arrived from one road or another in the division almost every single day — and behind every number stands a family whose life has been shattered.
Thousands of people travel every day on the roads of Sylhet Division — from district towns to upazilas, from the haor wetlands to the tea garden areas, roads are the main means of movement everywhere. A death rate this high on those very roads raises serious questions about transport safety.
In this expatriate-heavy division, the earning members of many families set out by road every day in search of a livelihood. So the shock of each death does not stop with one family — it falls on the future of the entire household and the lives of its children.
The toll of 288 deaths in nine months demands fresh thinking on road safety. Without investigating the causes of crashes, identifying high-risk spots and raising awareness among drivers, passengers and pedestrians alike, bringing this number down will be difficult, observers say.
How much higher the figure climbs in the remaining three months of the year is now the pressing concern. Unless effective steps are taken to restore discipline on the roads, the year-end picture risks becoming even grimmer.
People of Sylhet Division hope this statistical warning will not remain confined to the news pages — and that the procession of deaths will begin to recede through visible, real action on road safety.
