Road crashes continue to claim the lives of a staggering number of students in Bangladesh, with 7,364 students killed between 2019 and June 2026, accounting for 15.11 percent of all road fatalities during the period.
These findings come from a report by the Road Safety Foundation (RSF) which was released on Tuesday.
Data analysis shows that 48,713 people were killed in road crashes across the country during the same period.
Among the student victims, 3,328 (45.19 percent) were school and madrasa students aged between five and 17 years, while 4,036 (54.80 percent) were college and university students aged between 18 and 25 years.
Younger children remain vulnerable as pedestrians, motorcycle crashes have become the single biggest cause of death among teenagers and young adults, it said .
Motorcycles account for more than half of student deaths
Of the total student fatalities, 3,841 (52.15 percent) were either motorcycle riders or pillion passengers.
Besides,519 students (7.04 percent) were killed while riding bicycles or travelling by rickshaw. Another 154 students (2.09 percent) died after scarves or clothing became entangled in the wheels of auto-rickshaws.
Road-wise analysis shows that the highest number of student deaths occurred on regional roads, where 2,149 students (29.18 percent) lost their lives.
The analysis shows that children aged between five and 12 were mostly killed while walking to or from school or while playing near their homes after being struck by auto-rickshaws, motorcycles and goods vehicles. Such crashes were more common on rural roads.
Student deaths peaked in 2022
The annual death toll shows a sharp rise over the years.
A total of 693 students were killed in road crashes in 2019, followed by 719 in 2020 and 936 in 2021.The number reached its highest level in 2022, when 1,385 students lost their lives.
The figure later declined to 1,153 in 2023, 1,073 in 2024 and 1,014 in 2025. During the first six months of 2026 alone, another 391 students were killed.
During the same period, another 1,237 students died after being hit by trains while crossing railway tracks carelessly or walking along railway lines while using headphones, according to the analysis.
Major causes identified
The study identifies several factors behind the alarming number of student deaths, including defective roads and unsafe vehicles, inadequate awareness about road safety, the absence of structured road safety education in educational institutions, insufficient public awareness campaigns, reckless motorcycle riding among young people, poor compliance with traffic laws, and weak governance in the transport sector.
Recommendations
To reduce student fatalities, RSF recommended organising annual road safety campaigns in educational institutions, providing government-supported training for teachers, incorporating road safety questions into school examinations, launching sustained awareness campaigns through mainstream and social media, removing unsafe vehicles from roads, improving safety around schools and colleges, and strictly enforcing laws to prevent underage motorcycle riding alongside greater parental awareness.
Eight years after the Safe Roads Movement
RSF recalled the nationwide student movement for safe roads that followed the deaths of two students of Shaheed Ramiz Uddin Cantonment College, who were killed by a speeding bus of Jabal-e-Noor Paribahan on Airport Road in Dhaka on July 29, 2018.
It notes that despite the passage of eight years, the country’s road transport sector has failed to establish lasting discipline or significantly reduce road crashes.
The absence of a long-term and coordinated road safety strategy, weak enforcement of the Road Transport Act and the influence of vested interests have prevented meaningful reforms, it added.
Although committees are frequently formed and recommendations prepared, implementation remains limited, leaving road safety largely unchanged.