Road accidents parameters register a significant decline in 2020, deaths decrease by 12.84%

The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways informed on Thursday that the road accident parameters registered a significant decline in the year 2020 compared to the year 2019. Over the previous year’s average, total accidents decreased on an average by 18.46%. Whereas the number of persons killed decreased by 12.84% and the number of injuries decreased by 22.84 %, as per the official release said.

“A total of 3,66,138 road accidents have been reported by States and Union Territories (UTs) during the calendar year 2020, which claimed 1,31,714 lives and caused 3, 48,279 injuries,” the release said further.

According to the report ‘Road accidents in India — 2020’, prepared by the Transport Research Wing (TRW) of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), the number of road accidents has been on a decline since 2016 except for a marginal increase of 0.46 percent in 2018. For the second consecutive year, the total number of road accident fatalities has declined in 2020. Similarly, the number of persons injured has been on the decline since 2015.

"For the third consecutive year in 2020, the fatal road accident victims largely constitute young people in the productive age groups. Young adults in the age group of 18 - 45 years accounted for 69 percent of victims during 2020. People in the working age group of 18 – 60 years share 87.4 percent of total road accident fatalities," said the official release.

As per the report, there has also been a decline in the number of fatal accidents, i.e., accidents involving at least one death. A total of 1, 20,806 fatal accidents were reported in 2020, which is 12.23 percent lower than the 2019 figure of 1, 37,689. Interestingly, during 2020, National Highways, State Highways and Other Roads reported a smaller number of accidents, fatalities, and injuries as compared to the previous year.

The Major States that achieved a significant reduction in road accidents in 2020 are Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Karnataka. And the major States that achieved a significant reduction in road accident fatalities in 2020 are Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Andhra Pradesh.