The road accidents parameters registered significant decline in 2020 compared to 2019 in India.
A total of 1,20,806 fatal accidents were reported in 2020, which is 12.23 per cent lower than the 2019 figure of 1,37,689.
The state wise distribution of fatalities during 2020 presented in the ‘Road Accidents in India 2020’ report depicts less number of fatal accidents recorded in urban areas in all States except for Delhi and Assam.
The total accidents decreased on an average by 18.46 percent, the number persons killed decreased by 12.84 percent and the number injures decreased by 22.84 percent over previous year’s average.
The total number of road accidents has been on decline since 2016 except for a marginal increase of 0.46 percent in 2018. For the second consecutive year, the total number of road accidents fatalities has declined in 2020.
Similarly, the number of persons injured has been on the decline since 2015, the Road Accidents in India 2020 report released by the transport research wing of Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways said.
There has also been a decline in the number of fatal accidents, that is accident involving at least one death.
The road accident severity measured by the number of persons killed per 100 accidents, however, saw an increase of 2.3 percentage points during 2020, the report said.
During 2020, 1,40,313 (38.32%) road accidents were reported in urban areas and 2,25,825 (61.68%) in rural areas.
In respect of fatal accidents, total of 39,089(32.4%) accidents were reported in urban areas and 81,717 (67.6%) accidents in rural areas.
In urban area accidents killed 42,088 (32%) persons whereas in rural areas the number reported was 89,626 (68%).
As compared to 2019, the share of urban areas in accidents and fatalities have come down in 2020, whereas the same has increased for rural areas, the report said.
About 36 percent of injured were in the urban area whereas 64 percent of injury took place in the rural area.
The higher share of rural areas in total fatalities reveals comparatively inadequate trauma care facilities in rural areas as compared to urban area.
State wise distribution of fatalities during 2020 presented in the report depicts less number of fatal accidents recorded in urban areas in all States except for Delhi and Assam.
Uttar Pradesh topped the list with 9484 rural and 7591 urban fatalities followed by Maharashtra (7797 rural and 2976 urban fatalities) and Madhya Pradesh (7047 rural and 2827 urban fatalities).
Top 10 States share about 72.4 percent of fatal road accidents (23% in rural and 49.4 % in urban area) during 2020.
The month wise data on road accidents reveals during the last five years (2016 to 2020), the months which recorded maximum number of accidents and accident deaths were May, June, March, however, in 2020 these months reported comparably less number of accidents, which may be due to Nationwide lock down and subsequent restrictions imposed on movements.
The month-wise distribution details both road accidents and fatalities are comparably low during April to July and then rises during August to December.
Maximum number of accidents reported in the month of December followed by January, February and November.
The peak month for road related deaths was in December followed by November, October and September.
Except for two months of April and May, despite lockdown and restrictions on movement, the number of fatalities reported in 2020 follows the pattern similar with that of 2019, the report said.
