A study by World Life Expectancy states that road traffic accidents are amongst the top 10 reasons for deaths causing more than 2.5 lacs deaths in India. The growth rate of road accident deaths is higher than the growth rate (year on year) of population in India. However, we see a decline in the growth rate of road accidents in later years especially post 2008.

The data from a report from the Transport Research Wing of Ministry of Road Transportation and Highways, Government of India (2015) has further revealed that the states of Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra have accounted for a maximum number of deaths in the year 2015-2016 whereas Delhi, Chennai and Bengaluru top the charts among cities. The report also showed that Highways are not the “biggest killers.” As per the report, 10469 accident deaths occurred at the four-arm junction, while 12371 accident deaths took place at Y junction, while a maximum number of deaths happened at the T junction (24441). Accident deaths due to driver’s fault appear to the be the most significant cause of concern, other than defected vehicle and poor road conditions. While driver’s fault led to 106021 of all road accident deaths, other vehicle’s driver’s fault caused 6961 deaths.

An interesting discovery of the report was the fact that fine weather conditions saw a majority of road accident deaths. The report said that 339580 road accident deaths accounted on a fine weather day as against days which witnessed cloudy weather, dust storm, flooding of slipways, hail/sleet, heavy rain, light rain, mist/fog, snow, strong wind and other conditions.

Road accidents deaths were highest among the 25-64 years of age while the death rate of passengers is higher than the person driving the car. Truck, tempo, tractor and MAVs (26%) are most prone to road accident deaths closely followed by two-wheeler vehicles (25%). Cars, jeeps and taxis (20%) also account for a considerable share of road accident deaths.