[TusharK]

1.73 lakh people lost their lives in around 4.22 lakh traffic accidents in India last year. Uttar Pradesh reported the highest number of deaths (24,711), while Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra registered 16,685 and 16,446 deaths, respectively.



As per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 4,22,659 accidents were recorded in the country in 2021 as compared to 3,68,828 in the previous year. These included 4,03,116 road accidents, which caused 1,55,622 fatalities – a 16.8% increase over 2020.

16,431 people lost their lives in 17,993 railway accidents and 1,807 people perished in railway crossing accidents in 2021.

The number of traffic accidents reported in Tamil Nadu went up from 46,443 in 2020 to 57,090 in 2021. Madhya Pradesh recorded 49,493 accidents, while Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Kerala registered 36,509, 30,086 and 33,051 accidents, respectively.

According to NCRB data, the rate of deaths per thousand vehicles increased from 0.45 in 2020 to 0.53 in 2021. Road accidents caused more deaths than injuries in Mizoram, Punjab, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh.

Source: NDTV

Link to Team-BHP News

[Tucker48]

Over-speeding and careless driving were the two major causes of road accidents that claimed 87,050 and 42,853 lives, respectively, in the country in 2021.

According to the latest report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol contributed 1.9 per cent of the total accidents, which resulted in injuries to 7,235 people and 2,935 deaths.

A total of 1,55,622 people lost their lives due to road accidents in 2021.

"Cause-wise analysis of road accidents revealed that most of the road accidents were due to over-speeding, accounting for 59.7 per cent of the total accidents (2,40,828 out of 4,03,116 cases) which caused 87,050 deaths and injuries to 2,28,274 persons," the report said.

Dangerous driving and overtaking caused 1,03,629 accidents, which resulted in 42,853 deaths and injuries to 91,893 people. They constituted 25.7 per cent of the total accidents in 2021.

Another 2.8 per cent of accidents (11,110 out of 4,03,116 cases) were due to poor weather conditions.

Overall, poor weather conditions, driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and mechanical defects in vehicles caused 3.5 per cent (5,405 deaths) ,1.9 per cent (2,935 deaths) and 1.3 per cent (2,022 deaths) of total deaths, respectively, in 2021.

As many as 11,419 of the total 87,050 deaths due to over-speeding were reported from Tamil Nadu, contributing 13.1 per cent, followed by Karnataka with 8,797 deaths (10.1 per cent).

Careless driving and overtaking caused maximum fatalities in Uttar Pradesh (11,479 out of 42,853) which accounted for 26.8 per cent of total deaths, followed by Rajasthan - 10 per cent (4,299 deaths.

Uttar Pradesh also reported the highest fatalities due to driving under the influence of drugs, accounting for 27.1 per cent, followed by Telangana (11.6 per cent), Jharkhand (11.1 per cent ), Madhya Pradesh (9.2 per cent ) and Maharashtra (6.4 per cent).

Thirty per cent accidents (72,333 out of 2,40,747 cases) in rural areas and 29.7 per cent accidents (48,270 out of 1,62,369 cases) in urban areas took place in residential localities.

Altogether, 7.7 per cent road accidents in urban areas took place at the pedestrian crossing (12,528 out 1,62,369 cases).

Besides, eight per cent (28,873 out of 4,03,116 cases) of road accidents in the country have taken place near schools, colleges and other educational institutions.

Uttar Pradesh followed by Tamil Nadu have reported 24.4 per cent and 9.4 per cent of total deaths due to road accidents near schools or college or other educational institutes in urban area respectively.

Uttar Pradesh also reported the highest fatalities due to road accidents at places near residential areas (urban) accounting for 18.0 per cent (2,969 out of 16,466) of total such deaths during 2021.

Source: free press journal.

24% deaths near educational institutions in UP. Shocking and a wake up call for authorities and the govt. It's anti humanity, it's anti nation.

[Turbohead]

I'd take the cause of accidents with a bucket load of salt. I don't think there's any real investigation done on why certain accidents happen.

We have a long way to go in order to reduce these deaths and that starts with researching on the real reasons why this happen and take appropriate steps to avoid them.

Putting up random speed cameras with artificially lowered speed limits in non accident prone zones and expecting accidents to reduce is folly beyond my understanding.

But hey, our govt silently treats it as a population reduction/control measure.

[Thilak29]

Just to put it in perspective: On an average, there is 1 death every 3 mins on Indian roads.

Live To Drive.

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by TusharK

According to NCRB data, the rate of deaths per thousand vehicles increased from 0.45 in 2020 to 0.53 in 2021. Road accidents caused more deaths than injuries in Mizoram, Punjab, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh.

That is a 17.8% increase in death rate y-o-y per 1000 vehicles plying on the road, which is shocking. There is one more set of data that MoRTH published - the death rate per 100 accidents, aka 'severity'. It's frightening to note that the number of deaths per 100 accidents has climbed up from 21.6 in 2005 to 36.0 in 2020 - a 66.7% increase.



Not sure how to explain it - whether it is because of better roads, faster cars, more unsafe cars, or poorer driving standards, or a combination of all of these.

The total number of accidents dropped in 2020 presumably because of reduced traffic due to the Covid-19 lockdowns.

[anjan_c2007]

When the deaths were 125,000 per annum some years ago, our Hon'ble Union Transport and Highways Minister was always proclaiming in many public forums about these alarming statistics. He had always wanted to reduce it with addition of more safety devices, but mainly on new cars only and improvements to road engineering and traffic management.

His recent proposal for six airbags for every new car incl the frail Alto 800 was also appended with the per annum loss of lives in road accidents.

He also got the laws tweaked to punish road /highway engineers contractors who design or construct roads defectively.

But the Union Transport and Highways Minister and his Ministry are totally silent on severe deterrents for two wheelers carrying four to five passengers (including children/infants on the fuel tanks) , three wheelers carrying 20 or more passengers, three wheelers with no safety devices at all and dangerously overloaded, goods-hauling three wheelers. The cases of dangerously overloaded four wheeled taxis and goods carriers (incl mini pickups) are similar. And most of all the trucks and buses fall in a class of their own with their own privately codified laws for haulage of goods and commutation with passengers respectively. We are losing thousands of lives due to a mismanaged public transport system.

There are thousands of other traffic bottlenecks that create fatal and near fatal accidents that most of us including the Hon'ble Minister and his Ministry know and these are very conveniently ignored.

Adding a few airbags in cars could save some lives now but what about the 20 years or more that have elapsed ever since the West rolled out NCAP safety standards compulsory with four or five star ratings for making cars roadworthy? We have woken up too late and millions of cars with ZERO NCAP safety ratings ply all over our country. Will they scrap all these? That's betraying and cheating the customer who has bought such a ZERO rated car, just a few years back maybe with his very hard earned savings.

[shancz]

Why is it surprising, we don't need an analysis to confirm what's freely visible on the road.

Increase in number of vehicles as more drivers attain driving age/capability with the same/worse driving sense/skills on faster automobiles as widely demonstrated on our roads will lead to such and honestly worse statistics in the future.
This is something easily palpable when we venture out.

IIRC a previous result had also mentioned that about 70% of the fatalities were two wheeler riders so the argument on NCAP or airbags doesn't apply there. Only proper driver training, sense and discipline will.
But I also realise that isn't going to happen so I have stopped wasting time on it. Probably the responsible authorities do the same.

[doga]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

That is a 17.8% increase in death rate y-o-y per 1000 vehicles plying on the road, which is shocking. There is one more set of data that MoRTH published - the death rate per 100 accidents, aka 'severity'. It's frightening to note that the number of deaths per 100 accidents has climbed up from 21.6 in 2005 to 36.0 in 2020 - a 66.7% increase.

Well, I feel if the accident is not severe resulting in death or major injuries and especially where another vehicle is not involved then lot many times it's not reported at all. So this figure really is deaths per 100 (reported) accidents. In a way this kind of gives bit of comfort that the fatality rate is not really 36% which would be alarming.

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by doga

Well, I feel if the accident is not severe resulting in death or major injuries and especially where another vehicle is not involved then lot many times it's not reported at all. So this figure really is deaths per 100 (reported) accidents. In a way this kind of gives bit of comfort that the fatality rate is not really 36% which would be alarming.

Well, that under-reporting would be a constant over the years, so the rise in fatality rate would certainly be statistically significant.

[AJ56]

The roads are getting more dangerous no doubt but I’d be interested to see the fatality breakup by class of vehicle, I’m certain 2 wheelers will be the leading type.

[PhoenixInRising]

This is a very sad state of thing.
It seems like we have a case of misplaced priorities. On one hand we are pushing to have safer cars(appreciative move) but we seem to loose the focus on better pedestrian infrastructure. I think we should focus on later since we have a sizeable number of mishaps and unfortunate incidents happening everyday.
We should stress on better pedestrian infrastructure and safety measures to be in place. I think we lack the basics in this regard. We hardly have enough pedestrian friendly measures in place, be it footpaths, road crossings & walkways. We have foot over bridges spanning so high that we need to be fit as some sport person to make the climb everyday. Forget the predicament of senior citizens, I doubt how many of us who are on the greener side of 40 years will take the leap of climbing one of them.
Stressing on safer cars is appreciated but we should not loose the focus on the pedestrians who make up a huge chunk of daily commuters.

[Rohan265]

Originally Posted by TusharK

1.73 lakh people lost their lives in around 4.22 lakh traffic accidents in India last year.

I request the Mods to change the thread title to reflect this line. The NCRB data clubs all traffic accidents together. These are not just road crashes but even accidents involving railways and other modes of transport. The road crash fatality number is somewhere around 1.55 lakh.

The alarming thing here is that 2021 was still a pandemic year. I am not sure how high the numbers will be in 2022.

Originally Posted by Turbohead

I'd take the cause of accidents with a bucket load of salt. I don't think there's any real investigation done on why certain accidents happen.

We have a long way to go in order to reduce these deaths and that starts with researching on the real reasons why this happen and take appropriate steps to avoid them.

You are absolutely right about the cause of crashes and investigations. Our police force is neither trained nor does it have the manpower to investigate crashes thoroughly. Usually, crash causes are decided based on the 'victim's' (i.e. the smaller vehicle/pedestrian) statement. This is why vague reasons such as dangerous/careless driving are common in such reports. Overspeeding is also considered purely on victim/witness statements. Very few police officers have the capability of calculating vehicle speeds to determine if a vehicle is indeed 'overspeeding'. Infrastructural issues are never mentioned in any report.

Collecting usable crash data is the first and most important step toward reducing crashes. Unfortunately, the current data is not even worth researching. The government has only recently recognized this and the IRAD (Integrated Road Accident Database), an app-based data collection system, has been implemented across some states. That too has its own problems as there is no grassroots training provided to police officers. The current situation now is that police officers are taking a tablet to a crash spot but have no idea what to do with it.
The final result is inaccurate crash data, that in turn leads to counter-measures that are not tackling the real issues.

[Lobogris]

Originally Posted by Turbohead

I'd take the cause of accidents with a bucket load of salt. I don't think there's any real investigation done on why certain accidents happen.

Even though you are correct that scientific investigation is rare, generally speaking overspeeding and reckless driving are the main causes of most accidents. Hence the figure is likely to be correct. Practically all vehicles drive recklessly and overspeed in India.

Originally Posted by PhoenixInRising

We should stress on better pedestrian infrastructure and safety measures to be in place. I think we lack the basics in this regard. We hardly have enough pedestrian friendly measures in place, be it footpaths, road crossings & walkways. We have foot over bridges spanning so high that we need to be fit as some sport person to make the climb everyday. Forget the predicament of senior citizens, I doubt how many of us who are on the greener side of 40 years will take the leap of climbing one of them..

I agree that good footpaths should be built, maintained and kept encroachment free on all major roads. However even where good footpaths, pedestrian overpasses or underpasses exist, most people don’t use them. Drive on any road and you will see people walking on the road even with a good clean footpath available. You will see pedestrians crossing between fast moving vehicles rather than walking a few feet and waiting at a traffic signal. In Delhi we have escalators and lifts for pedestrian overpasses but you see people crossing several lanes of traffic right below them. The same people who can’t climb these overpasses can happily jump over multiple fences placed there to prevent them from crossing. Even for an older person, it is much easier and safer to slowly climb a few stairs than trying to jump over a fence and run across multiple lanes of fast moving traffic. So almost all the blame lies on pedestrians in India.

[mvadg]

I have attached the latest report here for those who want read the original.

I don't see any section for bad road design, etc., which means they don't ever want to take any part of the blame.

Given the data, we just have to "localize" our vehicles to suit local conditions. Limit speed to 25 kmph on highways by changing vehicle design (may be add a constant permanent brake to all vehicles - I'm thinking like our bureaucrats here, forgive me) or by adding speedbreakers every 100ft.

City speed should be limited by mandating a red flag person walking in front of motor vehicles.

[Abhisheknott]

Two wheelers account for maximum deaths - 45%.

Its not a stretch to assume that majority of this will be due to bad roads for which the respective governments and corporation must be held accountable under culpable homicide. I wish that more attention is given to the state of the roads but very few are bothered.

For the riders not wearing a helmet, what is there to be said?

https://www.thehindu.com/news/nation...le65829329.ece