Road accidents: K'taka in top 3; B'luru in top 3 metros

Our roads continue to remain a death trap for travellers with Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka topping the list and accounting for more than one-third of such incidents involving vehicles across the country.

Among the metros, Chennai, Delhi and Bengaluru had the highest number of road accidents.

According to the ‘Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India 2016’ report, there were a total of 4.73 lakh road accidents in the country, registering a rise from the 2015 figure of 4.64 lakh. In these accidents, 1.51 lakh people lost their lives in 2016 as against 1.48 lakh in the previous year, while the number of injured in 2016 was 4.85 lakh.

When it comes to 53 metros, there were 83,324 accidents, in which Chennai accounted for 7,486 incidents, followed by Delhi (5,356) and Bengaluru (5,356). Chennai and Bengaluru had a rise in such incidents compared to 2015.

Analysing the deaths and injuries caused by road accidents, Uttar Pradesh, which had 30,608 accidents, topped the list of those losing their lives in such incidents. It had 19,006 deaths and 20,024 injured.Tamil Nadu followed with 17,128 deaths and 82,163 injured, while Maharashtra (13,682 and 35,726) came second. Karnataka had 11,286 deaths, to be ranked fourth. Among the injured, Karnataka has the second highest figures with 54,544.

According to the report, 25.1% victims of road accidents were riders of two-wheelers. Trucks or lorries caused 19% of the accidents, while cars and buses have accounted for 14% and 9.7%, respectively.

A majority of road accidents were due to over-speeding, accounting for 49.5% of total accidents and caused 68,704 deaths and injured 2,41,158 people.Dangerous driving or overtaking caused 1,54,500 (32.7%) road accidents, which caused 53,392 deaths and injured 1,52,918 persons during 2016. Only 2.9% of road accidents were due to poor weather
conditions.

The report said 55.5% of the road accidents were reported in rural areas (2,62,750 cases), while 25.2% cases were reported near residential areas.

The report showed that it is for the first time that the number of traffic accidents, which also included rail related incidents, crossed the five lakh mark. In 2016, there were 5.02 lakh traffic accidents, which also included 3,123 rail-crossing accidents and 25,927 railway accidents.