Dhaka: As many as 4,439 people were killed and 7,425 others injured in some 3,103 road accidents across the country in 2018, according to a road safety advocacy group.

Of them, 634 were killed in road accidents involving motorcycles, said ‘Nirapad Sarak Chai’ (Nischa).

Ilias Kanchan, noted film actor and founder of the group, published the report at a press conference at Dhaka Reporters’ Unity on Tuesday, reports the UNB.

The report was compiled based on reports published in six national dailies, online portals, TV channels and branches of ‘Nirapad Sarak Chai’.

The report was published a day after the death of two siblings, who were killed when a truck hit a motorbike carrying them while returning home from school with their father in South Keraniganj on the outskirts of the capital on Monday afternoon.

According to the report, the deaths in road accidents saw a 21.36 percent year-on-year decline as some 5,645 people were killed in road accidents in 2017, 1206 less than the figure of 2018.

Of the deceased, 740 succumbed to their injuries they suffered in road accidents at hospitals or clinics and after releasing from the hospitals, said Ilias Kanchan.

He also suggested raising awareness and taking stringent measures by law enforcers to stop the violation of traffic rules, haphazard parking, overtaking, reckless driving and carrying passengers on roofs of vehicles and enforcing the use of footbridges, underpasses and zebra crossings.

Ilias also stressed the need for implementing the government’s announcement to insert in school textbooks the tropic of road accident and measures to prevent it.

However, according to Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity, a passengers’ welfare association, a total of 7,221 people were killed and 15,466 others injured in at least 5,514 road accidents across the country last year.

It presented the statistics at media briefing at the Jatiya Press Club on January 25.