Earlier this week, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) published its annual report on ‘Road Accidents in India-2022’ that said 4.61 lakh road accidents have been reported across the country in 2022, killing 1.68 lakh people and injuring 4.43 lakh. Compared to 2021, these numbers indicate an increase of 11.9 per cent in accidents, 9.4 per cent in fatalities, and 15.3 per cent in injuries.
The accident deaths reported in 2022 were the highest-ever. These figures translate, on an average, into 1,264 accidents and 462 deaths every day or 53 accidents and 19 deaths every hour in the country.
Among various traffic rule violations, over-speeding has killed the highest share. Of 1.68 lakh accident deaths, 1.19 lakh (over 71 per cent) were related to over-speeding.
Where do most accident deaths take place?
Sunny and clear weather: Adverse weather conditions, including rain and fog, make driving riskier as they impact visibility. However, the report shows that around three-fourth of the accident fatalities took place under sunny and clear weather — 1.19 lakh (71 per cent) of the total 1.68 lakh accident deaths. With 14,773 deaths, rainy weather was at the second position.
Straight Roads: During the last year, 67 per cent (3.09 lakh) of total accidents took place on straight roads. Further, of the total 1.68 lakh accident deaths, 1.12 lakh (66 per cent) took place on straight roads. After straight roads, the deadliest road feature was curved roads that killed 20,573 people.
Open-area: More than 55 per cent (92,772) accident deaths took place in open areas – locations which normally do not have any human activities in the vicinity. This can be because usually open areas have a lower enforcement presence, thereby making them prone to dangerous driving and traffic rules violations.
The report suggested that vehicle speed tends to be high on straight roads in open areas which corroborates the high percentage of road accidents, persons killed and injured on these roads.
The data, however, suggests that road safety measures must not be ignored in even straight road stretches which are normally considered to be less risky.
Highest-ever road accident death risk
Another way to measure road accidents is road accident fatality risk – the number of accident fatality in a year per 1,00,000 population. In the year 2022, it stood at a highest of 12.2.
Decadal trend in the number fatalities per lakh population showed an increasing trend since 1970. However, post 2010 it has been around 11 and 12.
In 2022, India had the highest number of total persons killed across the world due to road accidents, followed by China and the United States.
Road transport is the most cost-effective mode of transportation in India both for freight and passengers.
The report said that exposure to adverse traffic environment is high in India because of the unprecedented rate of motorisation and growing urbanization fuelled by a high rate of economic growth. As a result, incidents of road accidents, traffic injuries and fatalities have remained high.
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