A collateral of road traffic that we have learnt to live with is road crashes. In every Indian city they account for hundreds of deaths every year, with at least a death per day in most large cities. In 2022, when national level data was last published, 1.68 Lakh people died on India’s roads.
Mumbai’s Road Safety Annual Reports, published by the Mumbai Traffic Police, are an important report documenting the state of road safety on Mumbai’s roads. The reports are available till 2023 and they give us important insights on how road safety has been changing over the past years.
In this analysis we look at the road safety report from the perspective of road crash fatalities, particularly pedestrian fatalities, to draw insights into how safe Mumbai is for the average pedestrian.
Road crash deaths over the years
The number of road crash deaths in Mumbai peaked in 2015 at 611 and has since been on a decline. Since 2020 the number of fatalities seems to have stabilised between 350 and 400.
Pedestrians make up a large component of those who are killed on Mumbai’s roads. While they used to be more than 50% of the total proportion, it has been under 50% since 2019. In 2023, this proportion reached its lowest in recent years at 40.37%.
Pedestrian fatalities in 2023
In 2023, 374 people were killed in road crashes in Mumbai. Of these, 151 were pedestrians. Two and three-wheeler occupants formed the largest cohort at 179, or 54% of the total deaths. Four-wheeler occupants were relatively safe at 10% of the total deaths.
Of the 151 pedestrian deaths in 2023, men make up the bulk at 72%. Senior citizens, aged over 60, were also the largest cohort of victims by age group. This is particularly concerning as they are usually the smallest proportion of people using our streets.
Despite being a much smaller proportion of vehicles, cars and SUVs were the most dangerous vehicles for pedestrians, responsible for the most deaths followed by two-wheelers. Together with other large vehicles, four-wheelers and heavy vehicles accounted for the largest proportion of deaths of pedestrians in Mumbai.
Who were these drivers?
The 371 fatalities in 2023 were the result of 351 road crashes. Of these 351 crashes, the drivers were male in 90% of the cases. A female driver was responsible in only one crash. The gender of the motorist in 32 road crashes was not known.
Drivers aged between 20 to 30 were more likely to cause crashes than any other group. While those under 20 caused only 21 crashes, the lone woman driver was one of them. The data for 2023 suggests that drivers above the age of 40 are the safest as the number of crashes dropped drastically once the age-group crosses the 40 mark.
Hit and Run
In 38% of fatal road crashes in 2023, the drivers did not stop after causing the crash and could not be stopped by others. Pedestrians were disproportionately on the receiving end of these hit-and-run fatal crashes. While pedestrians accounted for just 40% of the total fatal crashes, in the case of hit-and-runs they made up 54% of the fatalities. This also suggests that it is easier to drive away after hitting a pedestrian than another vehicle where the impact can make it harder to move.
Conclusions
While 374 people died on Mumbai’s roads, a large percentage, 40% of them were pedestrians – people who were not operating any vehicles. Cars, SUVs and large vehicles were mainly responsible accounting for most of the pedestrian deaths.
Men and senior citizens were disproportionately affected, and in more than a third of such crashes, the motorists chose to drive away without taking responsibility for the crash. Fear of retribution from passersby could be one of the main causes and it needs to be worked on.
The high proportion of pedestrian deaths, especially of senior citizens suggests that significant intervention is needed in making the streets of Mumbai pedestrian-friendly. Walkable footpaths, and well-planned junctions are a non-negotiable necessity to ensure road safety for pedestrians.
A heavy presence of traffic police on the roads booking dangerous violations like speeding, jumping signals, wrong side driving etc can go a long way in improving the safety of pedestrians as well as other motorists. However, as we discussed in an earlier post, the rise of automation has meant that on-the-ground violations booking has taken a back seat in Mumbai.
Detailed data is essential to address road crashes in our cities. Data on road crashes for 2023 has not been released by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) till date. While it is welcome that some cities and states are making detailed data public, it needs to be seen if the trend will continue into 2024.