Road safety measures
Road accidents across India have been one of the major concerns for the government, civil society and law enforcing agencies. Every year lakhs of people are killed in road mishaps and going by the figures around 1.72 lakh fatalities (approximately 474 deaths per day or 20 fatalities per hour) were reported across the country in 2023.
The figures are rising on daily basis and a comparative analysis of the past five years also suggests that every year the figure of fatalities swells by almost 40 thousand.
Various reasons have been provided for the road mishaps however, some major causes that contribute to majority of deaths still remain over speeding, avoiding use of helmets, ignoring to wear seatbelts, overloaded vehicles and unlicensed driving.
Even a recently concluded study by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) suggested that as many as 16,025 people were killed in road accidents in 2023 as they were not wearing seat belts.
Of the casualties, 8,441 were drivers while the remaining 7,584 were passengers, according to the report titled ‘Road accidents in India 2023’.
A total number of 4,80,583 road accidents have been reported by Police Departments of States and Union Territories (UTs) in the country during the calendar year 2023, claiming 1,72,890 lives and causing injuries to 4,62,825 persons.
The report noted that non-usage of safety devices such as helmets and seat belts is critical for averting fatal and grievous injuries in the event of the occurrence of road accidents.
Notably, Jammu and Kashmir too fails in the list where road accidents are happening quite often. However, the measures adopted by the law enforcing agencies have not proven enough here or elsewhere to put a control on the number of mishaps and the resultant fatalities.
Though the government has implemented various initiatives to reduce road fatalities, like the Road Safety Policy which aims to raise awareness, create a road safety information database, and promote safer road infrastructure
Besides, electronic Monitoring and Enforcement of Road Safety rules have also been put in place but the results have not been so encouraging as far as reducing the number of deaths caused due to road accidents.
Ironically, the nature of accident or collision types at the aggregate national level data shows an increase in 2023 compared to 2022.
As per the study, ‘Hit from Back’ accounted for the largest share in total accidental death (20 per cent), followed by ‘Hit and Run’ and ‘Head on Collision’, which account for 18 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively.
Further, the study highlighted that ‘Hit from Back’ accounted for the largest share in total accidents (21 per cent), followed by ‘Head on Collision’ and ‘Hit from side’, which account for 17 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively.
Curtailing road mishaps need more than governmental efforts. The will of the people to put a control on road mishaps needs to be made more dominant so that the human loses besides, economic ones are reduced to a tolerable level.
