‘U.P. tops the fatal road accidents chart’
level, according to a report “Road Accidents in India 2020” recently released by the Union ministry of transport and national highways (MoRTH).
In 2020, a total of 3,66,138 road accidents were reported by states/UTs, of which, 1,16,496 (31.82%) were on National Highways in which 47,984 (36.43%) people were killed and 1,09,898 (31.55%) were injured.
“The fact that much of the 31.8% of the accident, 36.4% of death and 31.6% of accidents related injuries took place on national highways which share only 2.1% of the total road network in the country needs attention,” the report comments. “More accidents on the highways have been attributed to higher vehicle speeds and higher
volume of traffic on these roads,” the report added.
U.P. alone, according to the report, accounted for 16.4% of the total road accident deaths on the national highways in the country followed by Maharashtra (7.4%), Karnataka (6.9%), though Tamil Nadu reported the highest number of accidents on the national highways.
Tamil Nadu has topped for the fifth consecutive year in terms of the number of accidents 15,269 (13.1%) followed by Uttar Pradesh with 13,695 (11.1%) accidents, Karnataka with 11,230 (9.6%) accidents, and Madhya Pradesh with 9,866 (9.6%) accidents. A total of 7,859 persons were killed in 13,695 cases of road mishaps on highways in U.P. in 2020 which makes the state no 1 in terms of fatal accidents in the country.
The report shows that in U.P. a total of 10,492 accidents occurred, killing 5,984 persons on the national highways under the NHAI while 1,265 people died in 2,159 mishaps on the national highways under the PWD. On
the national highways (expressways) under other departments, as many as 610 people died in 1044 cases of crashes.
U.P. also got the 1st rank for reporting the highest number of deaths (5,825) on the state highways in the country in 2020 but in terms of the total number of road accidents (10,555) on the state highways, UP was ranked third.
“Of the 19,149 road crash deaths reported by U.P. in 2020, 13,684 occurred on national and state highways. Poor road engineering and large-scale violations of traffic rules are two of the biggest reasons that the state is ranked as number one in road
crash fatalities,” Piyush Tewari, founder and CEO of SaveLIFE Foundation pointed out.
“Issues such as gaps in the median on the national highways, untreated intersections, and missing crash barriers are some of the biggest engineering issues that we have encountered in U.P. Driver violations such as wrong-side driving, wrong lane usage by heavy vehicles, and mass violation of traffic lights are the biggest behavioural issues found in U.P.,” he added.
Tewari suggested that a detailed audit should be undertaken of all major roads and violations, as seen in various parts of the state, should be curbed.