Comments
While the Maharashtra Home Minister Devendra Fadnavis has instructed the State DGP to do a detailed investigation into the death of former Tata Sons Chairman, Cyrus Mistry, reports quoting police officials state that over-speeding and the “error of judgement” by the driver caused the accident.
In February this year, the Punjabi actor and activist Deep Sidhu died off a highway accident at Sonipath after his car rammed into a truck. In 2018, the former Rajya Sabha MP and Telugu actor Nandamuri Harikrishna died when the SUV he was driving hit the median in the Nalgonda district of Telangana. The other prominent road accident victims include the BJP leaders Gopinath Munde, Saheb Singh Verma and Satarist Jaspal Bhatti.
Many road accidents in India is a major cause of concern and the data reveals that 4,03,116 accidents were reported in 2021 resulting in 1,55,622 deaths and injuring 3,71,884. Overspeeding accounts for 58.7 per cent of the total accidents, while dangerous/careless driving or overtaking comprised 25.7 per cent.
Rise in fatalities
The National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) data on the Accidental Deaths in India (2021) shows that the road accident cases have increased from 3,54,796 in 2020 to 4,03,116 in 2021. The fatalities have increased by 16.8 per cent (from 1,33,201 in 2020 to 1,55,622 in 2021). Also, the death rate per thousand vehicles in 2021 has increased from 0.45 in 2020 to 0.53 in 2021.
The cause-wise analysis reveals that most of the road accidents were due to overspeeding, accounting for 2,40,828 out of 4,03,116 cases ( 59.7%) causing 87,050 deaths and injuring 2,28,274.
Dangerous/careless driving or overtaking caused 1,03,629 accidents (25.7% of the total) resulting in 42,853 deaths and injuring 91,893 during 2021. Accidents due to poor weather accounted only 2.8 per cent (11,110 out of 4,03,116 cases) Driving under influence of drug/alcohol accounts for 1.9 per cent injuring 7,235 with 2,935 deaths.
Accidents on National and State Highways
With the National Highways accounting for only 2.1 per cent of the total road length, they registered 30.3 per cent of the accidents. The State Highways having the share of 2.9 per cent of the road length have reported 23.9 per cent of the accidents. The other roads accounted for 45.8 per cent of such accidents in 2021.
A total of 1,899 road accidents were reported on the Expressways causing injuries to 1,214 with 1,356 deaths.
The highest deaths were reported on the National Highways, accounting for 34.5 per cent followed by the State Highways (25.1%). A total of 62,967 (40.5%) persons died due to road accidents on other roads in 2021.
Most accidents (81,410 out of 4,03,116 cases) occured between 6 pm to 9 pm, accounting for 20.2 per cent.
Vehicles and place
In 2021, the two-wheelers accounted for a maximum fatalities (69,240 deaths), contributing 44.5 per cent of the total deaths, followed by cars (23,531 deaths) (15.1%) and trucks/lorries (14,622 deaths) (9.4%). About 59.7 per cent of the total accidents have occurred in rural areas (2,40,747) and 40.3 per cent in urban areas (1,62,369).
Comments
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.