After former Tata Sons chairman Cyrus Mistry died in a car crash, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said a penalty will be soon levied on passengers for not wearing seat belts in the rear seats of cars. Earlier, according to the police, a primary investigation revealed that Mistry was not wearing his seat belt and moreover, his car was way beyond the speed limit at the time of the accident.
In light of the accident, here's a look at the number of people whose deaths in road accidents was associated with "non-wearing of seat belts."
Since 2016, the number of deaths associated with "non-wearing of seatbelts" in cars ranged between 5,500-26,896 every year, as per the data from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. The numbers for 2021 are yet to be released.
ALSO READ | Former Tata Sons Chairman Cyrus Mistry killed in road accident
Year-wise breakdown
2016: Non-wearing of seat belts caused 5,638 deaths, which was around 3.7 percent of the total road accident deaths in the country.
2017: A total of 26,896 persons killed in road accidents did not use seat belts. Also, as many as 12,206 persons died in road accidents in 2017, despite fastening their seat belts.
2018: There were 24,435 deaths associated with not wearing seat belts, which was 16.1 percent of the total road accident deaths in 2018.
2019: This year saw 20,885 deaths of passengers who had not worn their seat belts — which was 13.82 percent of the total road accident deaths in the country in 2019.
2020: More than 11 percent of road mishap deaths — 15,146 to be precise — were caused due to non-usage of seat belts.
What happened in 2021
It is worth noting that road accident cases in the country increased from 3,54,796 in 2020 to 4,03,116 in 2021. Moreover, most of the road accidents in 2021 were due to speeding — accounting for 59.7 percent of the total accidents that year, according to the
National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report on 'Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India 2021.'
"The rate of deaths in road accidents per thousand vehicles also increased from 0.45 in 2020 to 0.53 in 2021," the NCRB report said. As many as 4,03,116 road accidents caused 1,55,622 deaths and injuries to 3,71,884 persons in 2021. In Mizoram, Punjab, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, road accidents had caused more deaths as against injuries, it said.
A road safety status report by the Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Centre in 2021, had said, the "use of seat belts and airbag-equipped cars can reduce car-occupant fatalities by over 50 percent (provided the car user is seat belted)."
"It is estimated that air-bag deployment reduced mortality by 63 percent, while lap–shoulder-belt use reduced mortality by 72 percent, and combined airbag and seatbelt use reduced mortality by more than 80 percent," it noted.
(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)
