16 people killed every hour in road accidents in India in 2014: report
New Delhi: Road accidents claimed 16 lives every hour in the country even as these incidents attributed to over 80 per cent of deaths in the overall traffic related fatal causalities in 2014. A latest report prepared by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) to collect data on road accident related deaths in 2014 reported that 51 incidents of such accidents claiming 16 lives took place every hour during the same time period.
The report said a total of 1,41,526 people were killed and 4,77,731 injured in over 4.5 lakh incidents of road accidents last year. These deaths attributed to 83.7 per cent of fatalities in traffic accidents last year in the country with 25,006 deaths (14.8 per cent) reported in railway accidents and 2,547 deaths (1.5 per cent) in railway crossing accidents. Deaths due to road accidents also increased by 2.9 per cent during 2014 as compared to 1,37,423 deaths under the same category in 2013.
"Tamil Nadu (67,250 cases) followed by Maharashtra (44,382 cases), Karnataka (43,694 cases), Madhya Pradesh (39,698 cases) and Kerala (35,872 cases) have reported the maximum number of road accidents accounting for 14.9 per cent, 9.8 per cent, 9.7 per cent, 8.8 per cent and eight per cent respectively of such accidents in the country," the report said.
The maximum fatalities, the report said, were reported from Uttar Pradesh followed by Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra during the said period. The data said two-wheeler riders were the maximum people to be killed in these accidents with their percentage being 26.4 followed by riders of trucks/lorries (20.1 per cent), cars (12.1 per cent) and buses (8.8 per cent).
It also said national highways claimed more lives in these accidents at 27.5 per cent followed by state highways at 25.2 per cent with other city and town roads contributing for the remaining numbers.
"Most of the road accidents were due to over-speeding accounting for 36.8 per cent of total accidents which caused 48,654 deaths and left 1,81,582 persons injured.
"Dangerous/careless driving or overtaking caused 1,37,808 road accidents which rendered 42,127 deaths and 1,38,533 persons injured during 2014. Besides, 3.2 per cent of road accidents were due to poor weather conditions," the report said.
