The Deadly Roads

Between 2000 and 2015, governments have registered 1,649,770 accidents and 1,039,372 fatalities. And over 50 lakh persons were injured, many handicapped and traumatised for life.

- Ramesh Kumar Raja

Believe it or not, the roads on which we travel daily claim the largest number of lives in India every year. They cause tragedies even greater than war, terror attacks or Maoist violence in the country.

If the recent report released by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways is to be believed, road accidents have emerged as a major public health problem globally. In India, almost 5 lakh accidents occurred last year, killing over 1,46,000 people and leaving thrice the number injured.

With one of the highest vehicular growth rate in the world, accompanied by rapid expansion in road network and urbanisation over the years, India is faced with serious impacts on road safety levels. According to the report (Road Accidents in India 2015) compiled by the Transport Research Wing, the total number of road accidents increased by 2.5 % from 4,89,400 in 2014 to 5,01,423 in 2015. The total number of persons killed in road accidents increased by 4.6 % from 1,39,671 in 2014 to 1,46,133 in 2015.

Road accident injuries also increased from 4,93,474 in 2014 to 5,00,279 in 2015. The severity of road accidents, measured in terms of number of persons killed per 100 accidents has increased from 28.5 in 2014 to 29.1 in 2015.

The analysis of road accident data 2015 reveals that about 1,374 accidents and 400 deaths take place every day on Indian roads which further translates into 57 accidents and loss of 17 lives, on an average, every hour in our country. It must be noted that over half of those killed (over 78,900) were young lives, aged between 15 and 34 years.

The 13 top states, that accounted for 86.7% of all road accidents in the country are: Tamil Nadu (69,059), Maharashtra (63,805), Madhya Pradesh (54,947), Karnataka (44,011), Kerala (39,014), Uttar Pradesh (32,385), Andhra Pradesh (24,258), Rajasthan (24,072), Gujarat (23,183), Telangana (21,252), Chhattisgarh (14,446),West Bengal (13,208) and Haryana (11,174).