Alarming: Road Crashes Claimed 18 Lives Every Hour In India In 2021

New Delhi: Over 1.55 lakh people lost their lives in road crashes across India in 2021. That made it an average of 426 deaths daily or 18 every hour.

It’s the highest number of road fatalities recorded in one calendar year in the country, according to official data.

The death figures apart, 3.71 lakh people were injured in 4.03 lakh road accidents, according to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data under the ‘Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India – 2021’ head.

The report of NCRB, which functions under Ministry of Home Affairs, revealed that the rate of deaths per thousand vehicles in 2021 (0.53) was higher than that in 2020 (0.45) and 2019 (0.52), but lower than 2018 (0.56) and 2017 (0.59).

“Generally road accidents have caused more injuries than deaths, but in Mizoram, Punjab, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, road accidents caused more deaths compared to persons injured,” NCRB stated in the annual report.

In Mizoram, 64 deaths and 28 injuries were reported in 64 road accidents, while Punjab recorded 4,516 deaths and 3,034 injuries in 6,097 road accidents.

According to NCRB’s data for 2021, public transport, like buses, were safer than private modes of conveyance, like motorcycles. Of the deaths caused by road accidents, 44.5% were riders of two-wheelers, 15.1% cars, 9.4% trucks or lorries and 3% buses.

A majority (59.7%) of road accidents were due to over-speeding, which accounted for 87,050 deaths.

Dangerous driving, careless driving and overtaking contributed to 25.7% road accidents, leading to 42,853 deaths and leaving 91,893 persons injured. Just 2.8% of the road accidents were due to poor weather conditions, NCRB noted.