Accident Rates in India

Accidents are quite common on Indian Roads. According to figures by the Road Safety Cell of the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, there were 3.9 lakh accidents in 2000; 78,911 were killed and 3, 99,265 injured. Moreover with the rapid urbanization, India has seen an un-precedent growth of motor vehicles. Currently motor vehicle accidents rank ninth in order of disease burden and are projected to be ranked third in the year 2020. Worldwide, the number of people killed in road traffic crashes each year is estimated at almost 1.2 million, while the number injured could be as high as 50 million. In India, over 80,000 persons die in the traffic crashes annually, over 1.2 million are injured seriously and about 300000 disabled permanently.

Safety studies have found that a majority of accidents occur either due to the driver’s error or due to the negligence of the safety norms. Driver fatigue, drunken driving are some other reasons of the mishaps. The actions like dangerous overtaking, lane cutting, jumping of signals, erratic parking can be counted as major causes for the calamities on the roads. Usually, accidents are prevalent in urban cities where “Speed” of the vehicles is uncontrollable and where each and every individual is in hurry. Private vehicles get struck in the local roads while the commercial vehicle accidents are prevalent on highways. Buses are one more player. Many bus tyres get exploded, while most accidents occur because they do not use dim headlights.

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 “Most countries have a multi-disciplinary approach to traffic planning and road design. It is done by psychologists, engineers, doctors, sociologists and vehicle experts. In India, traffic is still a civil engineering issue.”