The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), Government of India, has finally released the Road Accidents in India Report for 2023, after a delay of more than a year. The report provides crucial insights into how safe (or not) our roads are for different road users.
The report offers detailed information on the number of road crashes, number injured and fatalities. The data is dissected along multiple lines like the type of highway, urban or rural areas, time of road crashes, weather during road crashes, road conditions, demographics etc.
In this analysis we look at mainly road crash fatalities, focusing on pedestrian fatalities. Pedestrians form the most vulnerable cohorts on the road, at the receiving end of road crashes, but rarely causing any damage to other road users. They are also increasingly at siege given shrinking and vanishing footpaths to accommodate the rapidly rising demands of private vehicles.
Fatalities rise
After the dip in 2020 due to Covid-induced lockdowns, the number of road crash fatalities in India has been rising each year and 2023 is no exception. 1,72,890 people died on Indian roads in 2023. This is up from 1,68,491 in 2022, an increase of 4,400 deaths.
What is concerning is that pedestrian fatalities have not only increased in parallel, but the increase is outpacing total fatalities. 35,221 pedestrians died on our roads in 2023, up from 32,825 in 2022, an increase of 2400 deaths. Pedestrians made up more than half the increase in road crash fatalities between 2022 and 2023.
In 2023, two-wheeler users continue to be the largest proportion of road users dying on our roads followed by pedestrians and car users. Pedestrians make up more than 20% of the fatalities.
It needs to be noted that until just eight years back pedestrians made up less than 10% of the fatalities. Their share in fatalities has more than doubled in the eight years since.
While two-wheeler users are the most culpable in pedestrian fatalities, given that they form the largest fraction of road users, cars and SUVs are only marginally behind. Despite cars forming less than a fifth of the total vehicles registered in India they are contributing disproportionately to fatalities. A recent report had also highlighted the role of the increasing share SUVs in higher pedestrian fatalities.
State-wise fatalities
Among the states, the most populous Uttar Pradesh is ahead of the rest of the states by a large distance, with 23,652 deaths in 2023. One in seven road crash deaths in India were in Uttar Pradesh, which also has around 12.5% of the total vehicles registered in India.
UP is followed by Tamil Nadu, with more than 18,000 road crash fatalities, or 10.61% of India’s fatalities, despite having 8.4% of the total vehicles in India. Compared to other states with a similar size of vehicles or population, Tamil Nadu has a much higher share in the fatalities.
When it comes to pedestrian fatalities too, Tamil Nadu has the highest number of pedestrian deaths at 4577. One in seven pedestrian deaths in 2023 happened in Tamil Nadu. The state also has a higher share of pedestrians in road crash fatalities compared to the national average, with close to 25% of the road crash fatalities being that of pedestrians.
However, West Bengal with 48.5% and Bihar with 39% have the highest and second highest share of pedestrian fatalities in India. Among UTs, 42.69% of the road crash fatalities in Delhi were of pedestrians, making it the most dangerous city for pedestrians.
Conclusions
Since 2021, the number of road-crash related deaths in India has been rising steadily. More than 1.7 lakh people died on our roads this year, of which 35,000 were pedestrians.
Among the states and UTs, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, UP, West Bengal and Bihar seem to be screaming for attention with high road crash fatalities as well as high proportion of pedestrian fatalities.
While the governments are busy boasting about the number of kilometres of new roads added each year, the number of vehicles on our streets have also been growing steadily. Except when a high profile road crash happens, road safety remains a topic that receives far less attention than traffic pile-ups or congestion.
City budgets prioritise adding more road infrastructure like flyovers and underpasses to address congestion woes, while pedestrians are usually left with the short end of the stick, if they get an end at all.
The purpose of the annual “Road Accidents in India” report is to shed light on the state of road safety in India and how it can be addressed. But given the relentless increase in fatalities, the report is increasingly becoming an embarrassing admission of failure by the governments, which probably explains why the report was so badly delayed.