The highest number of deaths in road accidents due to speeding last year were reported in Karnataka, according to the ‘Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India-2019’ report released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
While speeding claimed 86,241 lives in the country, 9,314 died in Karnataka. Tamil Nadu followed with 8,832 deaths.
The report states that speeding accounted for 59.6% of the total accidents in the country (2.6 lakh out of 4.37 lakh). The next major reason was dangerous and reckless driving, accounting for 1.12 lakh accidents.
The report also states that 19% of the accidents happened between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. “A majority of road accidents [in those hours] were reported in Tamil Nadu (13,143 cases), Madhya Pradesh (9,767 cases), and Karnataka (8,197 cases),” the report said.
State in top 5
During 2019, as many as 4,37,396 cases of road accidents were reported in the country, resulting in 4,39,262 persons being injured and 1,54,732 dying. Karnataka stood in third position among the States with the highest number of road accidents, behind Tamil Nadu (57,228) cases and Madhya Pradesh (51,641).
Piyush Tewari of Save Life Foundation said, “Karnataka is among the top States with the highest number of road accidents and fatalities. In Karnataka, highways are getting better and even at night, people drive with speed. There are habitations on either side of the roads, leading to a significant number of deaths on the road. Our recommendation to the State government is to adopt a safe system approach that basically takes into account human error and to redesign infrastructure keeping in mind the safety of pedestrians. Engineering and enforcement interventions are needed to bring down the [number of] road accidents and deaths.”
In the State, 10,951 people were killed and 50,442 injured in road accidents.
The report also states that in the country, 38% of victims of road accidents were riders of two-wheelers, followed by those in trucks (14.6%), cars (13.7%), and buses (5.9%).
In addition to road accidents, 22 railway crossing accidents were reported in the State, resulting in 15 deaths.
