The report reveals that on an average, 1,264 accidents and 462 deaths every day or 53 accidents and 19 deaths every hour in the country.

New Delhi :  A total of 4,61,312 road accidents were recorded across India in 2022, resulting in the death of 1,68,491 people and injuries to another 4,43,366 persons, according to the latest data released by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH). The data claims an increase of 11.9% in accidents, 9.4% in fatalities, and 15.3% in injuries compared to the previous year.

Out of the total of 1,68,491 fatalities reported in 2022, 61,038 (36.2 per cent) were on national highways, 41,012 (24.3 per cent) were on state highways and 66,441 (39.4 per cent) were on other roads,” it added.

Amongst the States, Tamil Nadu recorded the highest number of road accidents on National Highways in 2022, whereas, the number of persons killed in road accidents was the highest in Uttar Pradesh, the report said.

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 66.5 percent of victims during 2022. People in the working age group of 18 – 60 years share 83.4 per cent of total road accident fatalities, the report read.

The annual report said that the two-wheeler riders in total fatality has been the highest (44.5%) during 2022 followed by the Pedestrian road-users with 19.5 percent of persons killed in road accidents.

The number of road accidents in 2022 increased by 11.9 percent compared to previous year 2021. Similarly, the number of deaths and injuries on account of road accidents also increased by 9.4 percent and 15.3 percent respectively.

Tamil Nadu with 64,105 accidents (13.9 %) recorded the highest number of road accidents in 2022 followed by Madhya Pradesh (54,432 i.e., 11.8%). Uttar Pradesh (22,595 i.e., 13.4 %) topped the States in respect of the number of fatalities due to road accidents followed by Tamil Nadu (17,884 i.e., 10.6%)

The data reads that ‘over speeding’ constitutes the main violation associated with accidents, fatalities and injuries, in 2022. “Over speeding” accounts for 72.3 percent of the total road accidents, 71.2 percent of total deaths and 72.8 percent of total injuries. The number of accidents, fatalities and injuries increased by 12.8 percent, 11.8 percent and 15.2 percent respectively in 2022 relative to 2021. ‘Driving on the wrong side’ was the second highest cause of the total road accidents during 2022 accounting for 4.9 percent.

The other major traffic rule violations are ‘drunken driving/consumption of alcohol and drugs’, ‘jumping red light’, ‘driving on wrong side’, ‘use of mobile phones’ etc. registered an increase in 2022 compared to 2021. However, the number of accidents and deaths due to traffic rule violation in ‘Others’ category showed an increase of 28.3 percent and decrease of 14.4 percent respectively in 2022 relative to the same period last year.

Drunken driving/consumption of alcohol and drugs, jumping of red light and use of mobile phones taken together accounted for 7.4 percent of total accidents and 8.3 per cent of total deaths. The other category which would include reasons like road environment, vehicular condition etc. accounted for 18.2 percent of the accidents, 18.1 percent of fatalities and 18.1 percent of injuries. State wise details on various types of traffic rules violations for the year 2022.

During 2022, road accidents involving drivers with learners’ license and without valid license together constituted 11.8 per cent of total accidents. The number of accident cases involving drivers without valid driving licenses had reduced from 37,182 in 2021 to 35,925 in 2022, registering a decline of 3.4 percent corresponding to the same period last year.

Accidents involving learner’s license were reduced from 19,184 in 2021 to 18,298 in 2022, registering a reduction of about 4.6 percent over 2021. It may be seen that in 69.4 percent of the road accidents cases, the drivers were having valid driving licenses.

During 2022, a total of 50,029 persons were killed who were not wearing helmet, of which 35,692 (71.3%) persons were drivers and 14,337 (28.7%) were passengers. Similarly, for the same period, 16,715 persons were killed who were not wearing seat belt.

Out of 16,715, 8,384 (50.2%) were drivers and remaining 8,331 (49.8%) were passengers. Moreover, 1,01,891 persons who got injured in road accidents were not wearing helmet and 42,303 persons injured in road accidents were not using seat belt in 2022.

The report further reveals that 47.7 percent of accidents, 55.1 percent of deaths and 48.2 percent of injuries occurred in open areas, i.e., locations which normally do not have any human activities in the vicinity. Under road feature category, 67 percent of accidents took place on straight roads, whereas accidents on curved roads, pothole roads and steep grades together accounted for only 13.8 per cent of the total road accidents in 2022, the report says. It further added that a total of 1,38,171 road accidents happened involving vehicles less than 5 years and the highest number of deaths i.e. 50,762 reported involving vehicles less than 5 years.