Three-fourths of road accident victims are walkers, motorcyclists: study

These figures are significantly higher than those tabulated by the NCRB

July 29, 2016 12:00 am | Updated 06:10 am IST - Bengaluru:

The country’s roads may be more of a deathtrap for pedestrians than what the data suggest.

Pedestrians form more than one-fifth of all road accident deaths — significantly higher than the 10 per cent shown in the tabulations in the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), reveals a study conducted by researchers from the World Bank and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, U.S.

A model

For their study, researchers took Belagavi district as a model to investigate the veracity of figures shown in the NCRB data. The suspicion of inaccurate data came from the low proportion of pedestrian deaths: in the country, it is less than 10 per cent; while in Karnataka, it is less than 5 per cent. This is far lower than the average shown by developing countries, and less than a fourth of what is shown by neighbouring countries.

The team studied the first information report (FIR) summaries of all road traffic accidents in the district for 2013 and 2014, and compared them with the NCRB data. In 2013 and 2014, the district recorded 1,464 road accident-related deaths — or 2 per cent more than what is shown in the NCRB data. The significant difference, however, was seen when researchers checked the percentage of pedestrian deaths.

The NCRB notes 9 per cent of the deaths were of pedestrians for 2013 and 2014. The FIRs, however, showed that pedestrian deaths were around 22 per cent for both the years. Similarly, while the NCRB said that nearly a third of the victims were motorcycle riders, the figure obtained by the researchers was 49 per cent and 53 per cent, respectively, for 2013 and 2014.

The impact of faulty figures is apparent: cumulatively, the vulnerable group of pedestrians and motorcycle riders form more than three-fourths of the deaths, while in the official records it was barely a half.

“However, the Indian government’s spending on highways has focused primarily on making roads wider and vehicular movement faster, and thus much more dangerous for these vulnerable groups,” said Kavi Bhalla, the study’s lead author and an assistant professor in the Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

‘Underrepresented’

The process of recording crashes in Belagavi district is the same as those followed by the police throughout the country. Deaths of vulnerable road users (pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists) are substantially underrepresented, while deaths of those travelling by cars, buses and trucks are over-represented, notes the study.

Going by the increased number of deaths of “vulnerable commuters”, the focus should instead be on sidewalks, raised crosswalks and segregated lanes.

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