India misses road accident target again as crashes, fatalities creep up in 2024

The data is based on real-time information entered by state police on the government’s Electronic Detailed Accident Report (e-DAR) portal. While the minister did not share the total number of accidents in 2024, The Indian Express earlier reported the figure at 4.73 lakh, excluding West Bengal.

The Stockholm Declaration on Road Safety, adopted at the 3rd Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety in February 2020, set a global target to reduce road traffic deaths and injuries by 50% by 2030. India is a signatory to that.

Yet the country has continued to record a year-on-year upward trend in road accidents and deaths. A temporary decline was observed during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021.

States with highest fatalities

According to World Road Statistics, a non-profit organisation, India continues to be the top country in terms of the total number of people killed by road accidents, followed by China and the US. The fatality rate per lakh population in China is 4.3. The figure is 12.76 in the US and 11.89 in India.

Gadkari told Parliament that the government has formulated a strategy to reduce accidents and fatalities based on “4Es” — education, engineering, enforcement and emergency care. “Funds allocated to be spent for comprehensive road safety aspects varies from 2.21% to 15% of total cost of the development projects depending upon structures involved for construction of National Highways,” he said.

On November 4, The Indian Express had reported that the road fatality numbers for 2024 would exceed the 2023 figure.

As per the earlier report, in terms of overall numbers, Tamil Nadu maintained its top position for the seventh consecutive year in 2024 with 67,526 accidents, followed by Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, and Karnataka. In terms of fatalities in accidents, Uttar Pradesh topped the chart with 24,118 deaths in 2024, followed by Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Rajasthan.

The data shows that among large states, UP recorded the highest accident-to-fatality ratio in 2024, with 52.37% of reported crashes resulting in deaths — on average, every second road accident results in a fatality.

While the overall numbers surpassed figures of 2023, nine states registered a decline in both accidents and fatalities in 2024, including Gujarat, Haryana and Punjab. Among the states, Kerala recorded the lowest accident severity, with one death for every 13 accidents.

Some of the states saw a decrease in one metric, but increase in another. For instance Andhra Pradesh saw a marginal decrease in accidents (19,949 to 19,557) but an increase in fatalities (8,137 to 8,346) between 2023 and 2024. Similarly, Karnataka saw a decrease in accidents (43,440 to 43,062) but a slight increase in fatalities (12,321 to 12,390).