Despite record government investments in infrastructure, road accidents in India continue to grow alarmingly, with over 460,000 occurrences in 2022 resulting in the loss of 168,491 lives – an all-time high.
As to the annual report on road accidents released by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways on Tuesday, there were 461,312 events reported by the states and Union Territories (UTs) in 2022, resulting in 443,366 injuries. Compared to 2021, the year had a rise of 11.9% in accidents, 9.4% in fatalities, and 15.3% in injuries.
“The report underscores the urgency of adopting a comprehensive approach to address the contributing factors to these accidents, including speeding, reckless driving, drunken driving, and non-compliance with traffic regulations. It is crucial that we strengthen enforcement mechanisms, enhance driver education and training programmes, and invest in improving the condition of roads and vehicles,” the highways ministry said in a statement.
The incident has also drawn attention to India’s increasing fatality rate in such incidents. Compared to 2022, twelve calendar years have seen more traffic accidents; yet, in that year, there were more fatalities than ever. 2019 saw the second-highest number of deaths, which is 10,000 fewer than in 2022.
Although the number of deaths per vehicle registration has decreased over the last few decades, 2022 also saw the highest number of deaths relative to the Indian population, with 12.2 fatalities per lakh persons.
Despite various interventions at the state and national levels, there has been minimal improvement in road safety measures. Nitin Gadkari, the minister of roads and transport, has likewise found this to be a source of concern.
The annual report is based on information submitted by state and territory police agencies in the formats specified by the Asia Pacific Road Accident Database project, which is managed by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.
It is the main resource for global road safety parameter monitoring, of which India is one of the worst-performing nations. Though there are about six times as many traffic accidents in the US than there are in India, India nevertheless has the greatest number of road accident deaths worldwide.
According to the report, 33 per cent of all road accidents and 35 per cent of fatal accidents took place on national highways and expressways. This is despite record investments in improving highway infrastructure. In FY24, the highways ministry has been provided the highest allocation from the Union Budget – Rs 2.7 trillion.
In 2022, 106,682 accidents, which constitute 23 per cent of the total, took place on state highways and the remaining 202,633 (43.9 per cent) on other roads. In fatalities, national highways accounted for 36.2 per cent of the total, while state highways and other roads accounted for 24.3 per cent and 39.4 per cent.
The report also found that a large number of accidents remain attributable to human errors. In 2022, over speeding was a major cause, accounting for 71.2 per cent of the persons killed. It was followed by driving on the wrong side (5.4 per cent).
Besides the human cost of the accidents, experts and the Centre alike have talked about their economic cost. In a continuing trend, most victims of these accidents are young. Adults in the age group of 18 to 45 years made up 66.5 per cent of the victims in 2022 while those aged 18 to 60 years (working population) comprised 83.4 per cent of the overall fatalities.
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