Every hour, India’s killer roads claim 17 lives: Govt

Tamil Nadu (69,059) tops the list in road accidents, while Uttar Pradesh (17,666) has witnessed the maximum number of fatalities. There are 17 deaths every hour on Indian roads. Admitting the fact Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said, “I’m sorry to say that not much has changed even after two years of “dedicated work and sincere efforts” to reduce road fatalities.”

“About 1,374 mishaps are happening on Indian roads claiming 400 lives each day. I’m “deeply pained” at the findings that show 17 deaths in 57 crashes per hour and over 54 per cent of those getting killed being in the age group of 15-34 years,” Gadkari said.

The total number of mishaps increased 2.5 per cent from 4,89,400 in 2014 to 5,01,423 in 2015. The total number of road fatalities increased 4.6 per cent from 1,39,671 in 2014 to 1,46,133 in 2015, while road accident injuries have also increased 1.4 per cent from 4,93,474 in 2014 to 5,00,279 in 2015.

Among metro cities, Delhi registered the highest fatalities – 1,622, while Mumbai saw the most number of accidents – 23,468. 

The report also highlighted the fact that in 2015, the highest number of accidents occurred in the month of May where as many as 46,247 cases were reported, while in March 42,842 mishaps took place. A similar trend was witnessed in 2014, too as 45,404 road accidents were reported in May and 42,524 in March.

Most of road accidents took place between 3 pm to 6 pm and 6 pm to 9 pm, accounting for a share of 17.5 per cent (87,819) and 17.3 per cent (86,836) respectively.  Among the 13 accident prone states, Tamil Nadu with 69,059 incident tops the list, followed by Maharashtra (63,805) and Madhya Pradesh (54,947).