With an increase of 3.6 per cent in fatal crashes in Delhi as compared to 2020, a total of 4,720 accidents were reported in the national Capital leading to 1,239 deaths while 4,273 people were injured in 2021. Delhi Traffic Police has prosecuted 1,04,369 vehicles for plying without pollution under control certificates (PUCC) in 2021 and penalised more than 91,000 riders for not wearing helmets. According to the Traffic Police report titled ‘Delhi Road Crash Report, 2021’, released by Delhi Police Commissioner, Sanjay Arora on Friday, pedestrians were the most vulnerable victims in road accidents. “In 2021, 40.7 per cent of the total people killed in road crashes were pedestrians. Scooter and bike riders were the second most vulnerable victims constituting 38.1 per cent of the total persons killed,” the report stated.
The report listed “disobeying traffic rules” and “over-speeding” as two major reasons behind road accidents in the city in 2021. While causes were mentioned for 320 fatal road accident cases, no such factor was highlighted for 886 such cases in the report.
According to the report, 277 fatal crashes were caused as traffic rules were disobeyed, 213 such cases occurred due to over-speeding, five for taking sharp U-turns and three for “unguarded civil work”.