Data on Road Accidents in India 2018

Source: PIB & Ministry of Road Transport and Highways 

Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has released its annual publication on ‘Road Accidents in India, 2018’. It provides data on accident-related deaths and injuries, calendar yea- wise, based on information supplied by the Police Department of States and UTs.

Key highlights of the report

• The report provides a brief overview of Road accidents in India. It underlines the commitments made by India at the second global high-level conference on Road Safety in Brazil in 2015 to halving deaths and injuries from accidents by 2020
• India, however, ranks 1 in the number of road accident deaths across the 199 countries reported in the World Road Statistics, 2018 followed by China and the US. As per the WHO Global Report on Report on Road Safety 2018, India accounts for almost 11% of the accident-related deaths in the World
• In percentage terms, in 2018, the number of accidents has increased by 0.46 percent, persons killed has increased by 2.4% and injuries have decreased by 0.33 percent over that of the previous year i.e 2017. Road accident severity measured by the number of persons killed per 100 accidents, has seen an increase of 0.6 percentage points in 2018 over the previous year.
• National Highways which comprise of 1.94 percent of total road network, accounted for 30.2 percent of total road accidents and 35.7 percent of deaths in 2018. 
• State Highways which account for 2.97% of the road length accounted for 25.2 percent and 26.8 percent of accidents and deaths respectively. 
• Other Roads which constitute about 95.1% of the total roads were responsible for the balance 45 % of accidents and 38% deaths respectively. 
• In impacting vehicle categories, two-wheelers accounted for the highest share (35.2%) in total accidents and (31.4%) in accident-related killings in 2018. Light vehicles comprising cars, jeeps and taxis as a category, ranks second with a share of 24.3 percent in total accidents and 20.3 percent in total fatalities. 
• In terms of accident-related killings by type of road user, the number of Pedestrians killed accounted for 15%, the share of cyclists was 2.4% and that of Two-wheelers was 36.5%. Together these categories explain 53.9% of the accident-related killings and are the most vulnerable category quite in line with global trends.
• During 2018, like the previous two years, young adults in the age group of 18 – 45 years accounted for nearly 69.6 percent of road accident victims. The working age group of 18 – 60 accounted for a share of 84.7 percent in the total road accident deaths.
• 

Causes of Accidents

• Human Error Accidents caused by human error include;

• 1. Cases of accidents caused by traffic rule violations: The data in the report reveals that like in 2017, over speeding is the main violation associated with accidents, accident related deaths and injuries in 2018 with over speeding accounting for 66.5 percent of the road accidents , 64.4 percent of total deaths and 67.4 percent of total injuries. 
  2. Driving without valid driver license:  The data in the report reveals that about 74 % of road accidents involved drivers holding a valid driver’s license. Road accidents involving drivers without valid driving license decreased from 48,503 in 2017 to 37, 585 in 2018 registering a decline of 22.5% and accounted for 8.0% of the total accidents.
  3. Non-use of safety devices: Non-wearing of helmets by two-wheeler riders caused 43,614 deaths and accounted for 28.8 percent of total road accident deaths in the country during 2018. In 2018, Non-wearing of seat belts was found to be associated with 24,435 deaths and accounted for 16.1 percent of total road accident deaths in the country during 2018 involving 9,349 drivers and 15,086 passengers. 

• Road Environment: The causes related to the category of road environment include (i) accidents happening in a particular geographical area (residential, commercial institutional, etc), (ii) those related to the type of road features including straight, curved, steep, etc, (iii) type of junction & type of traffic control, (iv) weather condition, etc.
• Accidents classified by Vehicular condition: The third category of the vehicular condition includes cases of accidents associated with overloading and the age of the vehicles.