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Please find the Executive summary extracted from the report below. For full report please check http://morth.nic.in/showfile.asp?lid=2904&key=road%20accidents&n=1
5. Age profile of road accident victims for the calendar year 2016 reveals that the youth of age group 18 - 35 years accounted for 46.3 per cent (69,851 persons) and age group of 18-45 accounted for a share of 68.6% (1,03,409 persons) in the total road accident fatalities.
- Road accidents is a negative externality associated with expansion in road network, motorization and urbanization in the country. Road traffic injuries are recognized, globally, as a major public health problem, for being one of the leading causes of deaths, disabilities and hospitalization, imposing huge socio-economic costs. In case of India, road injuries is one of the top four leading causes of death and health loss among persons of age group 15-49 years.
- During the calendar year 2016, the total number of road accidents is reported at 4,80,652 causing injuries to 4,94,624 persons and claiming 1,50,785 lives in the country. This would translate, on an average, into 1317 accidents and 413 accident deaths taking place on Indian roads every day; or 55 accidents and 17 deaths every hour.
- As compared to 2015, the numbers of road accidents and injured victims have declined in 2016 by 4.1 per cent and 1.1 per cent respectively. However, the number of persons killed in road crash has increased by 3.2 per cent over the previous year, i.e, 2015.
- The number of fatal accidents, i.e., accident in which at least one victim dies, has increased consistently since 2005 and seen a sharp rise from 1,31,726 in 2015 to 1,36,071 in 2016. Consequently, accident severity expressed in terms of number of persons killed per 100 accidents, has gone up from 29.1 in 2015 to 31.4 in 2016.
5. Age profile of road accident victims for the calendar year 2016 reveals that the youth of age group 18 - 35 years accounted for 46.3 per cent (69,851 persons) and age group of 18-45 accounted for a share of 68.6% (1,03,409 persons) in the total road accident fatalities.
- The number of road accidents relative to population, registered vehicles and road length are on a general declining trend from 2010, but the number of persons killed per lakh population has not undergone similar decline in recent years, as it has climbed up to 11.9 in 2016, after an initial decline from 11.8 in 2011 to 11.2 in 2013.
- The National Highways constitute about 2 per cent of the total road network of India, but they accounted for 29.6 per cent of total road accidents and 34.5 per cent of total number of persons killed. The State Highways accounted for 25.3 per cent of total accidents and 27.9 per cent of the total number of persons killed in road accident in 2016.
- Traffic junctions are points of conflict and hence, are prone to road accidents. About 37 per cent of total accidents took place on junctions itself during the calendar year 2016. Within traffic junctions, uncontrolled ones contributed to a major portion of road accidents underscoring the importance of traffic control mechanism at junctions.
- Among the vehicle categories, two wheelers accounted for the highest share in total number of road accidents (33.8 per cent) in 2016, followed by cars, jeeps and taxis(23.6 per cent), trucks, tempos, tractors and other articulated vehicles (21.0 per cent), Buses (7.8 per cent), Auto-Rickshaws (6.5 per cent) and other motor vehicles(2.8 per cent). The share of two wheelers in total road accidents has increased from
28.8 per cent in 2015 to 33.8 per cent in 2016. - Out of total of 52,500 two wheeler riders killed in road accidents during the calendar year 2016, 10,135 two-wheeler riders (19.3 per cent) were reported to be not wearing helmets. Non-wearing of seat belts were also reported in 5,638 accident deaths during 2016.
- Road users on two-wheelers are the most vulnerable; constituting 34.8 per cent of total persons killed in 2016. The share of this category of road users in accident killings has gone up from 31.5 per cent in 2015 to 34.8 per cent 2016. The other road users killed in road accidents are cars, taxies, vans and other light and medium motor vehicles - 17.9 per cent; trucks - 11.2 per cent; pedestrians - 10.5 per cent; buses - 6.6 per cent; auto rickshaws - 4.7 per cent; and others motor vehicles - 10.6 per cent ( Details in Section V).
- Any road accident is multi-causal. Ideally the factors responsible should be established through objective assessment of the circumstance under which the road accident occurred. Based on the extant data reporting system on which this report is based, drivers’ fault is single most important factor responsible for road accidents (84 per cent), killings (80.3 per cent) and injuries (83.9) on all roads in the country during 2016. Within drivers’ fault category, exceeding lawful speed accounted for a highest share of 66.5 per cent in accidents and 61.0 per cent of accident deaths. However, in the total road accidents and total road accident killings, the share of over speeding accounted for 55.9 per cent and 49.0 per cent respectively ( Section VI).
- Intake of alcohol/drugs by drivers resulted in 14,894 road accidents (3.7 per cent) and 6,131 fatalities (5.1 per cent) in 2016. In the total road accidents and total road accident killings, the share of intake of alcohol/drugs by drivers comes to 3.1 per cent and 4.1 per cent respectively.
- The act of talking on mobile phones while driving has become one of the causes of road accidents. It has resulted in 4, 976 road accidents, 2,138 road accident deaths and injuries to 4,746 number of persons during the calendar year 2016.
- Overloaded vehicles caused 61,325 (12.8 per cent) road accidents and 21,302 (14.1 per cent) deaths in 2016.
- The total number of Hit and Run cases were reported as 55,942 (11.6 per cent) of the total road accidents in 2016 as against 57,083 cases (10.9 per cent) in 2015. The total number of persons killed in Hit and Run cases in 2016 is reported at 22,962, which is 15.2 per cent of total persons killed.
- Tamil Nadu topped the number of road accidents in the entire country with a percentage share of 14.9 per cent followed by Madhya Pradesh (11.2 per cent) and Karnataka (9.2 per cent). In case of road accident deaths, Uttar Pradesh topped the list with a percentage share of 12.8 per cent followed by Tamil Nadu (11.4 per cent) and Maharashtra (8.6 per cent). Tamil Nadu reported maximum number of persons injured in road accidents in the entire country with a percentage share of 16.6 per cent followed by Madhya Pradesh (11.7 per cent) and Karnataka (11.0 per cent) respectively. Inter-state comparisons reveal that over the last four years only marginal changes have taken place in the rankings of bigger 13 States (details in Section VII). These States account for more than 86 per cent of number of road accidents and persons injured and about 84 per cent of persons killed in road accidents.
- In 2016, the fifty Million-Plus Cities accounted for 18.7 per cent in total road accidents in the country, 11.8 per cent in total persons killed in road accidents and 16.7 per cent in total persons injured in road accidents. Chennai had the highest number of road accidents (7,486) while Delhi had the highest number of deaths (1,591)) due to road accidents. Accident severity for the combined 50 Million Cities was 19.8 in 2016 as against 14.9 per cent in 2015.
- Month-wise distribution of road accidents during the calendar year 2016 reveals that the highest number of accidents occurred in the month of May (43,368) followed by March (42,843), thus contributing 9.0 per cent and 8.9 per cent respectively. Higher accident rates are observed during the hours, 15:00 to 18:00 (17.9 per cent) and 18:00 to 21:00 (17.6 per cent) of the day.
- The Government has been implementing multi-pronged road safety programmes and initiatives which encompasses mass awareness/education programmes, engineering measures (both road and vehicle), enforcement of safety laws and emergency care to road accident victims. Recent road safety initiatives by Government of India are detailed in Section XI of the report.
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