The Minister of Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari launched the report “Road Accidents in India 2015” in New Delhi.
Road accidents have emerged as a major public health problem globally, and more so in India where almost 5 lakh accidents occurred last year, killing 1,46000 people and leaving thrice the number injured.
According to the report compiled by the Transport Research Wing, the total number of road accidents increased by 2.5% from 4,89,400 in 2014 to 5,01,423 in 2015.
The total number of persons killed in road accidents increased by 4.6% from 1,39,671 in 2014 to 1,46,133 in 2015.
Road accident injuries have also increased by 1.4% from 4,93,474 in 2014 to 5,00,279 in 2015.
The severity of road accidents, measured in terms of number of persons killed per 100 accidents has increased from 28.5 in 2014 to 29.1 in 2015.
The analysis of road accident data 2015 reveals that about 1,374 accidents and 400 deaths take place every day on Indian roads which further translates into 57 accidents and loss of 17 lives on an average every hour in our country.
About 54.1% of all persons killed in road accidents were in the 15 -34 years age group during the year 2015.
Thirteen top states namely Tamil Nadu (69,059), Maharashtra (63,805), Madhya Pradesh (54,947), Karnataka (44,011), Kerala (39,014), Uttar Pradesh (32,385), Andhra Pradesh (24,258), Rajasthan (24,072), Gujarat (23,183), Telengana (21,252), Chattisgarh (14,446), West Bengal (13,208) and Haryana (11,174) together accounted for 86.7% of all road accidents in the country.
Around 83.6% of all road accidents fatalities also occurred in the top thirteen states.
The fifty Million Plus Cities accounted for a share of 22.1% in total road accidents in the country, 11.3% in total persons killed in road accidents and 16.4% in total persons injured in road accidents.
Mumbai had the highest number of road accidents (23,468) while Delhi had the highest number of deaths (1622) due to road accidents. Accident severity in terms of percentage share of 50 Million Cities was 14.9% in 2015 as against 15.0% in 2014.
Drivers’ fault has been revealed as the single most responsible factor for road accidents, accounted for 77.1% of total road accidents during 2015 as against 78.8% during 2014.
Within the category of drivers’fault, road accidents caused and persons killed due to exceeding lawful speed/over speeding by drivers accounted for a share of 62.2% (2,40,463 out of 3,86,481 accidents) and 61.0% (64,633 out of 1,06,021 deaths) respectively.