At least five people are dying on Delhi roads every day and another five are battling for life after a fatal hit on the road. According to the latest report on road accidents compiled by the Ministry of Roads, Transport and Highways, Delhi led the list in most number of people killed in fatal accidents followed by Chennai, Bengaluru, Kanpur and Patna in 2012.
Although Mumbai, the country’s financial hub, reported the highest number of road accidents (24,592), the deaths (488) were less than 25 per cent when compared to Delhi, where 1,866 people died and 1,822 were fatally injured.
In 2012, a total of 4,90,383 road accidents were reported by all States and Union Territories. Of these about 25.1 per cent (1,23,093) were fatal accidents. The number of people killed in road accidents was 1,38,258, which is an average of one fatality per 3.5 accidents.
The report brings to light that the proportion of fatal accidents in total road accidents has consistently increased since 2003 from 18.1 per cent to 25.1 per cent in 2012. But the good news is that the severity of road accidents, measured in terms of persons killed per 100 accidents, declined for the first time to 28.2 during 2012 after it increased from 20.8 in 2002 to 28.6 in 2011.
Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh together accounted for 55.5 per cent of all road accidents. A closer study of the report shows that the highest number of persons killed per lakh of population in 2012 due to road hits were in Tamil Nadu (23.8) followed by Andhra Pradesh (17.5).
Among the best performing States or Union Territories in terms of lowest number of accidents was lakshadweep, which did not report any road accident death in 2012 and Nagaland which reported 2.5 people killed per lakh population.
Kerala had the highest number of persons injured per lakh of population (120) in 2012, followed by Tamil Nadu (116) and Goa (115), whereas Nagaland reported the lowest number of persons injured per lakh of population.