Published : 09 Aug 2026, 07:29 AM
Updated : 08 Sep 2026, 09:31 AM
The dashcam footage lasts only moments.
A passenger bus is travelling along its own lane on the Dhaka-Sylhet Highway. From the opposite direction, an air-conditioned sleeper coach pulls out to overtake another vehicle, swings across the road, and enters the oncoming lane.
The first bus moves further and further left, eventually dropping partly into a ditch in an attempt to avoid the collision. It is not enough.
The sleeper bus tears into its right side.
The crash left nine people dead in Sylhet’s Osmaninagar Upazila on Friday morning.
That same day, nine more people died in two separate bus crashes in Bogura; seven workers in one, and a driver and passenger in another.
The deaths have once again put the spotlight on a style of aggressive driving familiar on Bangladesh’s highways: speeding, racing for passengers, risky overtaking and what drivers call “bauli” — abruptly weaving or swinging a bus across the road.
Search online for dangerous or deadly bus journeys in Bangladesh and thousands of videos appear. Buses race one another along highways, weave through traffic and perform “bauli” manoeuvres, sometimes with passengers on board.
The spectacle has become an attraction for Bangladeshi and foreign content creators. Videos of high-speed races and dangerous driving draw large audiences online, with some foreign creators presenting them as evidence of how little margin for error there is on the country’s roads.
Yet beyond the spectacle lies a growing death toll.
Transport industry figures suspect “inexperience or negligence” on the part of the Bengal Transport sleeper-bus driver in the Sylhet crash. They believe he lost control while attempting a reckless “bauli” manoeuvre in a vehicle with a tall, heavy body.
In Bogura, at least seven workers were killed when a Shah Fateh Ali Transport bus swerved after its driver braked to avoid a motorcycle that suddenly entered the road. The bus spun around and ploughed into workers waiting nearby.
Before the shock of that crash had subsided, another speeding bus operated by the company collided with a truck that night, killing the bus driver and a passenger.
Witnesses said the Dinajpur-to-Chattogram bus was travelling at high speed and tried to pass beneath the Nakla flyover in Sirajganj rather than going over it.
At the time, a truck was crossing beneath the flyover from one side of the road to the other. The bus struck the truck around its left side, crushing the truck and badly damaging the front of the bus.
One bus driver explained why some drivers take such risks at flyovers.
“At night, when there are a lot of trucks, bus drivers try to go underneath the flyovers because loaded trucks take time to climb the slope,” he said.
“Bus drivers just don’t have the patience to wait that long.”
People in the transport industry say bus owners themselves suffer because drivers break the rules, but they have been unable to bring the practice under control.
Adding to the danger, they say, are the autorickshaws, locally made three-wheelers, motorcycles, and other small vehicles now crowding the highways.
Professor M Shamsul Hoque, a road safety researcher at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) summed up his frustration in a sentence.
“The entire sector has fallen into the hands of amateurs.”
He is equally critical of the agencies responsible for keeping the roads safe.
Officials from police and Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA), he says, “flutter in and out like butterflies” but do not accept responsibility when something goes wrong.
His argument is that apparently risky vehicles such as sleeper buses have been allowed to spread “like mushrooms” in full view of regulators without anyone ultimately being held accountable.
“It hasn’t worked from the bottom,” Prof Hoque said. “Unless we can now establish the responsibility of those at the top, incidents like these cannot be stopped.”
Drivers, meanwhile, say avoiding “bauli” altogether is difficult on Bangladesh’s roads. They blame the large number of smaller vehicles using the highways.
They also argue that many Bangladeshi drivers learnt their trade on non-air-conditioned Hino and other buses with relatively light bodies and conventional leaf-spring suspension.
The newer sleeper buses are different, they say. Their bodies are taller and heavier and they use air suspension. Drivers accustomed to throwing lighter buses from side to side can put their passengers and other road users in danger when they try the same manoeuvres in these vehicles.
They point to the Sylhet crash as an example.
Highway Police chief Additional Inspector General Faruk Ahmed, meanwhile, says he does not know whether sleeper buses have the necessary approval.
An Unwieldy Bus, A Reckless ‘Bauli’
Friday morning’s collision in Osmaninagar involved two passenger buses.
A non-AC Unique service was travelling from Sylhet towards Dhaka. Coming the other way was an air-conditioned Bengal Transport sleeper bus that had left Dhaka at night and was approaching Sylhet.
Shortly after the crash, footage from the dashboard camera of a vehicle travelling behind the Unique bus spread across social media.
It shows the bus remaining in its lane. The Bengal bus, attempting to overtake a vehicle ahead, moves completely out of its own lane and into the path of the oncoming coach.
Faced suddenly with the Bengal bus, the Unique driver keeps moving to his left, eventually taking the vehicle down towards the ditch in an attempt to avoid the collision.
He cannot.
The camera vehicle was travelling at 42kmph at the time — relatively slow for a highway. The Bengal bus strikes the Unique coach with such force that it rips through the side of its body.
Posts in traffic and bus-related social media groups have largely blamed the Bengal driver. Some users have also questioned the safety of such sleeper buses, saying their tall bodies make them easier to destabilise on the road.
After watching the crash video, a driver for sleeper-bus operator 46 Express described what he believed had happened.
“Did you notice how far the Bengal bus tilted when it tried the bauli?” he said.
“Because it leaned over, the glass on its right side broke and the corner of the front upper-deck seating area struck the Unique bus. It basically ripped open the entire right side of the Unique bus, from front to back. That is why passengers sitting on the right suffered most.”
Unique Service General Manager Tofayel Ahmed said both the driver and helper of his company’s bus were seriously injured. The supervisor, who was sitting near the door on the left, escaped injury.
“The supervisor told us the Bengal bus moved so far to its right while overtaking a CNG autorickshaw that our driver kept pushing left until the bus was down in the ditch,” he said.
“Our bus wasn’t travelling very fast, which is why it didn’t overturn even after going into the ditch. The other bus was going very fast. It tore apart the whole right side.”
Bengal Transport officials have also acknowledged fault on the part of their driver.
General Manager Tofazzal Hossain Ripon said the driver, Shafiqul Islam, fled after the crash.
“I spoke to the supervisor Dhrubo. He was sitting at the front of the bus and said the accident happened during an overtaking manoeuvre,” he said.
“Even when they left Dhaka at night, I told them the Sylhet road was bad and to drive very carefully. And then they did this.”
He said all 30 seats on the Bengal bus were occupied, but its passengers largely escaped serious injury.
“Apart from minor cuts and wounds to a few people, there wasn’t much harm.”
Ataur Rahman, who oversees Bengal Transport’s bus schedules, said the vehicle had only begun operating under the company’s banner the previous day.
“The driver was Shafiqul Islam. They had driven for other companies before. The accident happened on their very first trip.”
The bus was operating under a system known in the industry as “GP”, in which the owner pays a fixed daily amount to run a vehicle under another transport company’s name or banner. In other cases, companies lease vehicles from owners under monthly contracts.
The bus itself therefore belongs to an individual owner who rents it to the transport operator.
Many smaller transport companies do not own their fleets, industry figures say, which can leave them with less control over drivers and other staff.
Bengal officials put Shafiqul’s age at around 50 and say he had many years of driving experience.
The vehicle involved was a sleeper coach built on a 12-metre single-deck chassis manufactured by India’s Ashok Leyland.
Such buses have yet to receive BRTA approval in Bangladesh.
Is ‘Bauli’ Unavoidable?
Speak to drivers at Dhaka’s Gabtoli or Mohakhali bus terminals and “bauli” can sound almost like an occupational necessity.
Hashem Ali, a veteran driver from Gabtoli’s First Colony, says negotiating Bangladesh’s roads without it is virtually impossible.
“You simply can’t drive a bus in Bangladesh without doing bauli,” he said.
“There are so many narrow roads. Suppose there’s a truck ahead of you and a vehicle coming from the opposite direction. You have to take the bus right and then bring it back left. If you spend the whole journey behind a truck, are the passengers going to accept that?”
Hashem said older Hino “1J” buses were easier to handle in this way because their bodies were more forgiving.
“The Ashok Leyland sleeper buses have a light chassis, a heavy body and soft air suspension. When you try to bauli them, they lean over.
“The newer Mercedes buses also have a different braking system. They don’t stop in the same way as the 1J buses. You can’t drive them bumper to bumper like those buses.
“But our drivers are used to doing bauli, you understand? That is why these accidents happen.”
A sleeper-bus driver for 46 Express, who asked not to be named, made a similar point.
“Most drivers in this country are accustomed to non-AC buses with leaf springs,” he said.
“The sleeper buses coming in now have air suspension at the front, their bodies are built very high and they are made heavily with metal. So they are top-heavy.
“On roads that are raised in the middle and slope down on both sides, if you suddenly move one of these buses from left to right, it leans so much that even I get frightened.”
He said the techniques drivers learnt on older Hino buses could not simply be transferred to sleeper coaches.
“You have to drive these buses with a very cool head. There can be no rushing or competing.
“And these sleeper buses are illegal anyway. But everything gets managed somehow and they keep running.”
The Lure of Going Viral
The danger is no longer confined to the road. It has also become content.
In March, a video of a Chandni Transport bus in Bogura went viral after a “bauli” manoeuvre became so extreme that the wheels on its right side lifted off the ground.
The bus’s left side scraped against the road divider, and the driver narrowly avoided overturning it.
It later emerged that a group of content creators had hired the bus for an Iftar — Muslim fast-breaking gathering.
Members of the group were filming both inside and outside the vehicle. According to the report, their encouragement led the driver to continue performing the manoeuvres until the wheels lifted into the air.
A search online brings up thousands of similar videos of racing and “bauli” involving Bangladeshi buses.
Content creators say videos showing buses being driven in extremely dangerous ways attract large audiences both at home and abroad.
Foreign media organisations and creators have also travelled to Bangladesh to produce videos and documentaries about what they present as the country’s dangerous bus journeys.
One video posted on Facebook on Wednesday by an account under the name Anisur Rahman showed a child aged around 9 or 10 sharing the driver’s seat and holding the steering wheel while a bus travelled along a highway.
The speedometer was not working, but the engine’s RPM gauge indicated that the driver was using high engine power. The child’s hands remained on the steering wheel.
The caption read: “We have set off from Dhaka for Bandarban and Cox’s Bazar for three days. My son is in the driving seat. Everyone please pray for us.”
There are hundreds of Facebook groups and pages carrying videos involving Bangladesh’s buses.
Three months ago, a documentary on France 24 English’s YouTube channel described buses as Bangladesh’s popular form of public transport and said companies promised passengers shorter journey times to attract customers, whatever the risks involved.
The documentary showed one clip after another of dangerous bus driving.
Referring to a content creator, it said he regularly uploaded videos of such frightening journeys because they had become a form of entertainment, with passengers encouraging drivers to go as fast as possible.
bdnews24.com also spoke to a Bangladeshi creator who makes content about buses and the transport sector.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said videos involving buses, trains, and other vehicles in Bangladesh draw substantial audiences abroad, making them more lucrative for creators.
“That means they earn more dollars,” he said.
“So content creators are interested in making bus-racing or speed videos even if they have to hire a bus. And drivers go along with them because they hope to become famous overnight.”
The creator also works as a local guide and translator for foreign content creators visiting Bangladesh.
“Many foreign content creators now want to come to Bangladesh specifically to make content about Dhaka’s battered buses and highway bus racing,” he said.
“One French YouTuber told me that racing videos of some Bangladeshi buses get more views than the Dakar Rally.”
Among drivers and helpers, winning a speed contest can itself be a source of pride.
When creators film around the bus communities of Gabtoli or Mohakhali, some drivers acquire nicknames such as “Bauli Master” or “Fire Pilot”.
Caught in An Approval Maze
Sleeper buses began appearing on Bangladesh’s roads some five years ago.
Since then, the BRTA has maintained that they are not approved.
Some bus owners themselves say the dimensions of the vehicles’ bodies are not compliant and that the coaches pose serious risks.
Md Hanif, general secretary of the Bus-Truck Owners’ Association and one of the owners of Hanif Enterprise, said sleeper buses currently operating on the highways were unsuitable for long-distance travel.
“These sleeper buses are in no way fit for long routes,” he said. “We have told the authorities repeatedly, but they have paid no attention.”
Yet despite the questions over approval and safety, sleeper and so-called “suite class” buses continue to operate day and night on Bangladesh’s major highways, right under the nose of the BRTA and the Highway Police.
Industry figures say their number has already crossed 1,000.
Owners have now organised to seek a way of bringing the vehicles within the regulatory framework.
Saiful Alam, general secretary of the Dhaka Road Transport Owners’ Association, also acknowledged concerns about the buses.
But he said more than Tk 10 billion had already been invested in the sleeper-bus sector, and efforts were now under way to find a lawful solution.
“If a vehicle has no approval, police should not allow it to operate,” he said.
“But BRTA gave these vehicles registrations, route permits, and fitness certificates. Then at one point BRTA stopped approving them.
“When we came in, we found there were already a lot of them, at least 700 to 800. Most have registration and route permits, and there has been a lot of investment.”
The association has written to the ministry and the BRTA asking for the vehicles to be examined, he said.
“If they are found unfit to operate, then take them off the road. A BUET committee has now been formed. They have been examining the issue for six months and may submit their report this week.”
Asked how vehicles without approval could continue operating, Highway Police chief Faruk Ahmed said police could not know whether a particular bus had been approved.
“If it doesn’t have approval, how does it have a registration number? It is not as if these are vehicles without number plates.
“If you believe some part of a vehicle has been extended beyond what is permitted, that has to be raised with the BRTA. That falls within the BRTA’s jurisdiction, not police’s.”
‘Amateur’ Drivers and ‘Butterfly’ Officials
BUET Professor Shamsul Hoque has studied Bangladesh’s transport system for years.
Oversized bus bodies, drivers racing one another and “bauli” are nothing new to him.
Asked about Friday’s crashes, he returned to what he sees as the deeper problem.
“The entire transport system is now in the hands of amateurs,” he said.
“And the BRTA and police officials who are supposed to regulate it do not want to accept any responsibility. Ask them and they say, ‘We don’t understand.’
“If you don’t understand, then don’t take the responsibility. And after an incident, they don’t accept responsibility for failure either. They simply flutter in and out like butterflies.”
The practice of “bauli”, he said, has been visible for years.
“People in this country do bauli with buses full of passengers, make TikTok videos, and upload them.
“The question is: does anyone have responsibility for our roads?
“The Highway Police was created to look after these things. It was given a responsibility.
“BRTA gives a registration. But nobody checks whether the vehicle was built in accordance with the conditions of that registration. This has been going on for years. If you don’t do that, then what is the point of having you?”
Prof Hoque said there had been no sustained effort to protect the public.
“Every now and then we see some operation-based activity. But that is not stopping the deaths.
“Look at how many people have died. Perhaps now something will happen. BRTA will stir itself. Highway Police will form some investigation committees.”
He pointed out that Malaysia brought buses under vehicle tracking systems about 20 years ago.
“Vehicle tracking is no longer advanced technology,” he said.
“If these vehicles had been tracked, immediately after an incident we could know who was on the wrong side of the road and where a driver had performed bauli.
“People were losing so much life and property, yet we could not introduce these basic technologies.”
Prof Hoque said he had raised the issue with the prime minister and welcomed the move to make tracking systems mandatory on public transport.
He blames what he describes as the “negligence and incompetence” of police and BRTA for allowing the present situation to develop.
“This is why people’s blood is being shed,” he said. “They are never brought under accountability.
“Now the top has to be fixed. If the top is fixed, the bottom will correct itself.
“For so long we have had a bottom-up approach. We now need a structurally technology-driven, top-down approach.”
Tracking, he said, would not only expose drivers’ behaviour.
“The driver’s record would automatically come into it. But the record of police, BRTA and bus owners who were responsible for controlling him would also become visible.
“Then, if anyone failed to perform the responsibility assigned to them, they would no longer be able to escape accountability.”
