War on highways: The devastating cost of India’s road accidents

Among infrastructure projects, road construction is one of the most prominent aspects of modern economic development. In addition to helping people travel, roads facilitate the movement of goods across long distances. A well-established road network is the backbone of economic prosperity.

However, in India, road network expansion has paradoxically been accompanied by a surge in the number of road accidents, leading to huge economic, financial, and human losses that are beyond imagination.

War, by definition, brings destruction—loss of human lives and property, resulting in economic loss for both the countries as well as their citizens. That is why warring nations attempt to bring in a ceasefire. Contrary to this, in India, we wage a war every day, all through the year, without any attempt at a ceasefire.

Strangely, this war is not against a foreign enemy but waged by our own people, against our own citizens. The battlefield is the very road meant to bring prosperity and development. Every hour, 19 people die in road accidents in India—amounting to 462 deaths a day.

According to Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari, “Every year, 4.6 lakh accidents occur, leading to the deaths of 1.68 lakh people. We are losing an estimated 3% of India’s GDP because of this. Even when fighting extremist organisations, the death toll is much lower. Even in wars we have fought, the death toll has been much lower.”

Obviously, India holds the grim distinction of having the highest number of road accident deaths globally. What makes this even more tragic is that most of these deaths could have been prevented. Instead, road accidents per lakh population have been rising—by a staggering 84% in just one decade (1980-1990). Goa leads with 222 accidents per lakh population, followed by Kerala (110) and Tamil Nadu (100).

India must take note of the devastating impact of these accidents on families. Nearly 80% of those killed are below 45 years of age, meaning they are the primary wage earners in the family. Assuming an average family size of four, this means it impacts 6.8 lakh people directly, and those injured affect 17.7 lakh people. The tangible economic losses are visible in medical treatment, insurance claims, vehicle damage, and administrative expenses. But the intangible costs—the trauma, the loss of a breadwinner—are beyond measure.
As a consequence, the economic impact of this ongoing war is well over 3% of the gross domestic product; the World Bank estimated the cost to be 5-7% of GDP. This economic loss is more than the annual health budget at about 2% and higher than the education budget of 6% of GDP. With only 1% of the world’s vehicle traffic, India accounts for the highest number of accident deaths in the world, which is increasing by 9% every year.

This utterly shocking figure reveals the insensitive nature of our policymakers, leaders, and countrymen to a humanitarian crisis that is unparalleled in the history of any country.

Where do these accidents happen? More than half (52%) of accidents occur on national or state highways, which form just 5% of the total road network. Shiny new national highways, hailed as symbols of progress, often lack basic engineering design features like proper drainage, leading to potholes and eventually becoming death traps. 

In nearly 78% of cases, driver error is the primary cause—speeding, congestion, drunk driving, and hit-and-run incidents. Economic prosperity has fuelled vehicle ownership, while public transport remains neglected. The policies, too, favour the automobile lobby. Ownership of registered vehicles has increased by 158% since 2000, but road expansion has lagged at just 39%, leading to congestion and increased accidents. Two-wheelers constitute almost 70% of the registered vehicles. In India, roads are shared by pedestrians, animals, and vehicles of different kinds that lead to more fatal accidents, as there is no designated footpath or demarcation for vehicles.

According to the World Health Organisation, enforcement of speed limits and drunk driving scored 3 on a scale of 0-10. With such weak enforcement combined with unsafe engineering of road construction and low vehicle standards that have no preventive mechanism to save the lives of commuters, the war on roads is bound to accelerate rather than reduce the accidents.

India adopted the National Road Safety Policy in 2010. It suggested the formation of a National Road Safety Board to oversee the issues related to road safety and evolve effective strategies for its implementation. By allocating a percentage of the cess on gasoline and diesel, a National Road Safety Fund is established to fund the activities of road safety.

India must now launch a nationwide campaign to stop this war. There is an urgency to set a national target to reduce the accidents by improving the road safety measures and relevant laws and to create awareness among the general public. So far we have not set the targets and assume that we will reduce these through ongoing measures, which are not only illogical but have enormous negative consequences for the country.

To address the issue, we need a strong political commitment not only from the transport ministry but from the entire political setup. It has to be a multipronged strategy of enforcing the laws, evolving the road safety network, and changing the behaviour of people who are in the driving seat to be more humane and considerate towards fellow citizens whose lives matter most.

(The writer is a farmer and Uttara Kannada-based environmentalist)