Indian roads are one of the most challenging terrains to commute on. Accidents are fairly common and often lead to fatalities, in fact India has one of the highest mortality rates in terms of road accidents in the world. Mr Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport and Highways, has recently released a report on Road Accidents in India 2015, compiled by the Transport Research Wing.
As per the report, the number of accidents increased from 4,89,400 in 2014 to 5,01,423 in 2015. That’s an increase by 2.5 per cent. Fatalities rose by 4.6 per cent to 1,46,133! To make things even more scary, approximately 1,374 accidents take place daily which lead to 400 fatalities. That comes to around 17 deaths an hour!
Here are some quick pointers from the report:
- Number of injuries due to road accidents rose to 5,00,279 in 2015 from 4,93,474 in 2014.
- Tamil Nadu leads the race for most accidents with 69,059 mishaps, followed by Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh with 63,805 and 54,947 incidences respectively.
- The top 13 states account for 86.7 per cent of the total road accidents. Apart from the top 3 these include (in order) Karnataka, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal and Haryana.
- Mumbai with 23,468 accidents last year takes the top slot for cities while Delhi with 1,622 deaths last year leads the tally for fatalities.
- Overspeeding caused 47.9 per cent of accidents and 44.2 per cent of deaths.
- Overloading took the second spot for causes, accounting for 15.4 per cent of the accidents and 17.2 per cent of deaths.
- Hit and run cases caused 11.4 per cent of the accidents while fatalities for the same was at 14.2 per cent of the total figure.
- Alcohol and drugs though caused 3.3 per cent of the accidents and 4.6 per cent of deaths.
- Two-wheelers continue to be involved in maximum number of accidents, standing at 28.8 per cent. This has been rising steadily over the years and stood at 27.3 per cent and 26.3 per cent in 2014 and 2013 respectively. Cars, jeeps and taxis caused 23.6 per cent of the accidents.
- Most accidents (17.5 per cent) happen in the time period between 3 PM to 6 PM. While 6 PM to 9 PM slot faired slightly better at 17.3 per cent.
- The month of May experiences the maximum number of accidents while March ranked second.
- Approximately 9 per cent of the accidents were caused by drivers and riders without any driving license.
- Speed brakers accounted for 11,084 accidents, that’s 2.2 per cent of the total figure. They even caused 3,409 deaths (2.3 per cent).
- Defective brakes and steering caused 24,859 and 12,834 accidents respectively. Punctured tyres caused 10,836 accidents while bald tyres stood as the cause of 11,024 mishaps.
- Surprisingly more accidents happened while turning right (34,861) than left (13,729).
