Road accidents claimed over 1.53 lakh lives in 2021, injured more than 3 lakh people: Report

"These figures translate, on an average, into 1130 accidents and 422 deaths every day or 47 accidents and 18 deaths every hour in the country," the report said.

The country saw an unprecedented decrease in accidents, fatalities and injuries in 2020. "This was due to the unusual outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic and resultant stringent nation-wide lockdown particularly during March-April, followed by gradual unlocking and phasing out of the containment measures," the report said.

The worst affected age group in Road accidents as per the report, is 18-45 years, which accounts for about 67 percent of total accidental deaths, while people in working age group of 18-60 years share 84.5 percent of total road accident fatalities.

During 2021, out 4,12,432 accidents which were recorded in the country, 1,28,825 (31.2 percent ) took place on the National Highways (NH) including Expressways, 96,382 (23.4 percent) on State Highways (SH) and the remaining 1,87,225 (45.4 percent) on other Roads.

It said out of total 1,42,163 fatal accidents reported in 2021, 50,953 (35.8 percent) were on National Highways, 34,946 (24.6 percent) were on State Highways and 56,264 (39.6 percent) were on other roads.

An accident, which results in death of one or more persons, is a fatal accident.

Total number of fatal road accidents increased from 1,20,806 in 2020 to 1,42,163 in 2021, registering an increase of 17.7 percent corresponding to same period of previous year Fatal accidents constitute 34.5 percent of total accidents during 2021, it said.

Amongst the states, Tamil Nadu recorded the highest number of road accidents on National Highways in 2021, whereas, the number of persons killed in road accidents was the highest in Uttar Pradesh.

In 2021, under the category of Traffic Rule Violations, over speeding is a major killer, accounting for 69.6 percent of the persons killed followed by driving on the wrong side (5.2  percent) In respect of type of neighborhood’s categories, 46.9 percent of accidents, 54.2 percent of death and 46.9percent of injuries occurred in open area, locations which normally do not have any human activities in the vicinity.

Under road feature category, 67.5 percent of accidents took place on straight roads, whereas accidents on curved roads, pothole roads and steep grade together accounted for only 13.9 percent of the total road accidents in 2021.

Among vehicle categories involved in road accidents, two-wheelers for the second consecutive year, accounted for the highest share in total accidents and fatalities during 2021.

Light vehicles comprising cars, jeeps and taxis together come at distant second.

In terms of road-user categories, the share of two-wheeler riders in total fatality has been the highest (45.1 percent) during 2021 followed by the pedestrian road-users with 18.9 percent of persons killed in road accidents.

During the year 2021, million plus cities accounted for 16.3 percent of the total number of accidents and 9.9 percent of total accidents fatalities in the country.

According to the report, both road accidents and accident related killings are more a rural phenomenon than an urban phenomenon.

Hence, in 2021, about 69 percent of road accidents death took place in rural area where as urban area accounted for 31 percent of total accidents death in the country, it said.

’Hit from Back’ (21.2 percent ) accounted for the largest share in total accidents and total number of persons killed (18.6 percent) during 2021 followed by ’Head on Collision'(18.5 percent) and (17.7 percent) respectively.

The other major types of collision which caused death are ’hit & run’ (16.8 percent), and  ’hit from side’ (11.9  percent). Road accident severity measured by the number of persons killed per 100 accidents increased from 36.0 in 2020 to 37.3 in 2021.

Mizoram (81) recorded the highest accident severity followed by Bihar (80) and Punjab (78). About 60 percent of States have accident severity higher than national average, the report said.

The report which provides information on various facets of road accidents in the country during the calendar year 2021 is based on the data/information received from police departments of states/Union Territories collected on calendar year basis. It consists of ten sections and covers information relating to road accidents in the context of road length and vehicular population.