In Cyrus Mistry car crash tragedy, a reminder of high numbers of road deaths in the country

According to data collected by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), there are around 1.5 lakh deaths on India’s roads every year, of which one third are accounted for by National Highways.

Road accidents in India. (Source: NCRB data)

According to the data, in the past five years, while road accidents dipped from 4,45,730 in 2017 to 4,03,116 in 2021, deaths in these accidents increased from 1,50,093 to 1,55,622 in the same period.

A similar trend is seen on the National Highways. While the number of accidents on National Highways in 2017 stood at 1,30,942, as many as 50,859 people died in them.

In 2021, while the number of National Highway accidents dipped to 1,22,204, the number of deaths increased to 53,615.

The car being shifted from the accident spot using a crane. (ANI)

According to the data, barring the pandemic year of 2020, which saw long periods of lockdowns, the data on accidents and deaths have been consistently hovering around 4.4 lakh and 1.5 lakh respectively through the period between 2017 and 2021.

Lockdown impact

In 2020, the accident figures dipped to around 3.5 lakh, while deaths decreased to 1.33 lakh.

On National Highways, too, accidents and deaths registered a dip in 2020 with 1,06,933 accidents accounting for 45,275 deaths. In all the other years in the period the accidents stood around 1.28 lakh and deaths around 50,000.

The mangled remains of the car in which Cyrus Mistry and others travelled. (ANI)

Deaths per 100 km

As the length of National Highways has kept increasing every year, the NCRB, beginning 2018, also began collecting data on deaths per 100 km of roads. According to this data, in 2018, the deaths per 100 km of National Highways stood at 44. In 2021, the figure went down a bit to 40.

Why rides turn fatal

According to NCRB, year on year, the highest number of road accidents and deaths are recorded between 6 pm and 9 pm on average on a given day, and in the months of January and December in a given year. Sources said this is largely due to poor visibility in these periods.

The highest number of road accidents every year is attributed to negligent driving and speeding. Speeding caused 87,000 deaths, accounting for over half of all deaths, while dangerous and careless driving was attributed as the cause for 42,000 deaths in the latest NCRB report.

The mangled remains of the car in which Cyrus Mistry and others travelled. (Express Photo: Deepak Joshi)

As in previous years, two-wheelers accounted for most deaths (44.5%), while buses accounted for 3% of deaths in accidents in 2021.

The largest increase in the number of traffic accident cases from 2020 to 2021 was reported in Tamil Nadu (from 46,443 to 57,090), followed by Madhya Pradesh (from 43,360 to 49,493), Uttar Pradesh (from 30,593 to 36,509), Maharashtra (from 24,908 to 30,086), and Kerala (from 27,998 to 33,051).