Youth vulnerable road users in India

Youth continued to be the most vulnerable road users in India as the maximum number of young age people died in road mishap in the country last year.

As per the Road Accidents in the India-2017 report published by the Union Road Transport and Highways Ministry, of the total 1.47 lakh deaths in last year due to road accidents, 26.7% (39,549) victims are aged between 25 -35 years.

"Road accident victim largely constitutes young people in the productive age groups underscoring major implication on the economic cost of road accidents," says the report.

Young adults in the age group of 18-45 years accounted for the high share of 72.1% of the total number of deaths.

In gender wise comparison, in 2017, 1.27 lakh male and 20,047 female died.

The number of pedestrian deaths also increased. In 2017, total 20,457 died compared to 15,746 in 2016. The death of cyclists has also gone up from 2,585 cyclists in 2016 to 3,559 in 2017.

Two-wheelers riders without helmets caused 35,975 deaths and not wearing seatbelts caused 26,896 deaths.

Road safety experts believe that increasing penalty for traffic violations such as over speeding, drunk driving and using mobile are key to control errant drivers and the country also lacks a proper mechanism to punish every traffic rules offenders.

Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari earlier expressed worry over increasing death due to road accidents. He said that India is committed to reducing road accidents by 50% by the end of 2020.

The minister pegged the annual loss to the economy due to road accidents in India at close to 3% of the GDP.