The fatal road accident involving former Tata Sons chairman Cyrus Mistry on Sunday has once again highlighted the high number of deaths caused by such incidents in the country each year, with government data showing that a record 1.55 lakh lives were lost in 2021.
Mistry, 54, was killed this afternoon after his car hit a wall in Palghar district, Maharashtra, while traveling from Ahmedabad to Mumbai in a Mercedes car.
The accident happened around 3:15 p.m. on a bridge spanning the Surya River. It appears to be an accident, Palghar Police Superintendent Balasaheb Patil said.
According to National Crime Records Bureau data released recently, more than 1.55 lakh people were killed in road accidents across India in 2021 – an average of 426 per day or 18 every hour. This is the highest number of fatalities recorded in such accidents in a calendar year to date.
Apart from fatalities, 3.71 lakh people were also injured in 4.03 lakh “road accidents” across the country last year, NCRB figures showed under “Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India. 2021″.
The data showed that a majority (59.7%) of road accidents were due to speeding, accounting for 87,050 deaths and injuries among 2.28 lakh people.
While the number of deaths in road accidents reached its highest level last year, the number of road accidents and injuries decreased compared to previous years, revealed the NCRB report, which depends on the Ministry of the Interior.
The death rate per thousand vehicles in 2021 (0.53) was higher than that of 2020 (0.45) and 2019 (0.52) but lower than that of 2018 (0.56) and 2017 (0.59) , according to the data.
In 2020, the year of the COVID-19 lockdowns, there were 3.54 lakh road accidents in the country in which 1.33 lakh people died while another 3.35 lakh were injured. , according to the data.
In 2019, there were 4.37 lakh road accidents in which 1.54 lakh people died while another 4.39 lakh were injured, according to the data.
The country recorded 4.45 lakh road accidents in 2018, in which 1.52 lakh people lost their lives while another 4.46 lakh were injured, he noted.
The figures in 2017 stood at 4.45 lakh accidents, 1.50 lakh fatalities and 4.56 lakh injuries, according to NCRB figures.
“In general, road accidents resulted in more injuries than deaths, but in Mizoram, Punjab, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, road accidents resulted in more deaths than injuries,” said said the NCRB in its annual report.
For Mizoram, the figures were 64 dead and 28 injured in 64 road accidents, while Punjab recorded 4,516 dead and 3,034 injured in 6,097 road accidents, the NCRB said.
“In Jharkhand, 4,728 road accidents caused 3,513 deaths and injured 3,227 people, and in Uttar Pradesh, 33,711 road accidents caused 21,792 deaths and injured 19,813 people,” he added.
Data from the NCRB report for 2021 also suggested that public transport, such as buses, was safer than private modes of transport, such as motorcycles.
Of the total number of deaths in road accidents, 44.5% were drivers of “two-wheelers”, followed by cars (15.1%), trucks or lorries (9.4%) and bus (3%), revealed the data.
Dangerous or reckless driving or overtaking contributed to 25.7% of road accidents which caused 42,853 deaths and injured 91,893 people, it added.
Only 2.8% of road accidents were due to bad weather conditions, the NCRB noted.
Of the total number of road accidents, 59.7% were reported in rural areas (2.40 lakh cases) and 40.3% in urban areas (1.62 lakh cases), the report adds.
The NCRB said it has endeavored to collect comprehensive road accident information using the revised forms and has published the first report for the year 2014 and this edition is the eighth in the series.
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