ROAD ACCIDENTS IN INDIA-2018

Major findings of the Report are as follows:

• Road accidents in the country have increased marginally by 0.46 % during 2018 with the year seeing 4,67,044 road accidents as against 4,64,910 in 2017.
  
  
• The fatalities during the same period have also risen by about 2.37% and 151471 persons were killed in 2018 as against 1,47,913 in 2017.
  
  
• Road accident injuries have however showed a decrease of 0.33% in 2018 as compared to 2017.
  
  
• As in 2017, the State of Tamil Nadu recorded the highest number of road accidents in 2018. Similarly, as in 2017, the number of persons killed in road accident was the highest in Uttar Pradesh in 2018.
  
  
• National Highways accounted for 30.2 % of total road accidents and 35.7 % of deaths in 2018. State Highways accounted for 25.2 % and 26.8 % of accidents and deaths respectively. Other Roads were responsible for the balance 45 % of accidents and 38% deaths respectively.
  
  
• Accident related killings by type of road user: the number of Pedestrians killed accounted for 15%, the share of cyclists was 2.4% and that of Two wheelers was 36.5%. Together these categories explain 53.9% of the accident related killings and are the most vulnerable category.
  
  
• Young adults in the age group of 18 - 45 years accounted for nearly 69.6 % of road accident victims.
  
  
• The number of hit and run cases in 2018 accounted for 18.9% of the deaths compared to 17.5% in 2017.
  
  
• The share of males in number of total accident deaths was 86% while the share of females hovered around 14% in 2018.
  
  
• Causes of road accidents:
  • Under the category of Traffic Rule Violations, over speeding is a major killer, accounting for 64.4% of the persons killed followed by driving on the wrong side of the road which accounted for 5.8% of the accident related deaths.
    
    
  • Use of mobile phones accounted for 2.4% of the deaths with drunken driving accounting for 2.8% of the persons killed.
    
    
  • About 29% of deaths can be attributed to non use of helmets and 16% of deaths can be attributed to non use of seat belts.