• A total number of 4,61,312 road accidents have been reported by police departments of states and Union Territories (UTs) in the country during the calendar year 2022, claiming 1,68,491 lives and causing injuries to 4,43,366 persons.

• This marks an increase of 11.9 per cent in accidents, 9.4 per cent in fatalities, and 15.3 per cent in injuries compared to the previous year.

• This was revealed in the annual report on ‘Road Accidents in India-2022’ published by the ministry of road transport and highways.

Key points of the report:

• Overspeeding accounted for 72.3 per cent of the total road accidents, 71.2 per cent of total deaths and 72.8 per cent of total injuries.

• Drunken driving/consumption of alcohol & drugs, jumping the red light and use of mobile phones taken together accounted for 7.4 per cent of total accidents and 8.3 per cent of total deaths. 

• The others category, which would include reasons like road environment, vehicular condition, etc accounted for 18.2 per cent of the accidents and 18.1 per cent of fatalities. 

• Road accident severity measured by the number of persons killed per 100 accidents has slightly decreased to 36.5 in 2022 from 37.3 in 2021.

• A total of 50,029 persons were killed who were not wearing helmet, of which 71.3 per cent persons were riding the vehicle and 28.7 per cent were pillion passengers.

• As many as 16,715 people were killed in road accidents in 2022 because of not wearing seat belts.

• Out of these, 50.2 per cent were drivers and remaining 49.8 per cent were passengers.

• Amongst the states, Tamil Nadu recorded the highest number of road accidents on National Highways, whereas, the number of persons killed in road accidents was the highest in Uttar Pradesh. 

• Of the total accidents recorded in the country, 32.9 per cent took place on the National Highways, including Expressways, 23.1 per cent on state highways and the remaining 43.9 per cent on other roads. 

• Out of the total fatalities reported in that year, 36.2 per cent were on National Highways, 24.3 per cent were on state highways and 39.4 per cent were on other roads.

• People in the age group of 18-45 years accounted for 66.5 per cent of fatal road accident victims during 2022.

• Two wheelers accounted for the highest share in total accidents and fatalities.

• ‘Hit from back’ accounted for the largest share in total accidents deaths (19.5 per cent), followed by ‘hit-and-run’ (18.1 per cent) and ‘head-on collision’ which accounted for 15.7 per cent.

• Globally, India has the highest number of total persons killed due to road accidents, followed by China and the United States.

Road network in India

• Road network in India was to the tune of 63.32 lakh km in March 2019, which is one of the largest in the world. 

• The country's road network consists of National Highways, state highways, district roads, rural and village roads. 

• National Highways constitute 2.09 per cent of the total road length of the country in 2019. 

• The balance road networks comprise of state highways (2.9 per cent), district roads (9.6 per cent), rural roads (71 per cent), urban roads (8.5 per cent) and project roads (5.4 per cent).

Registered vehicles in India

There were 32.6 crore registered vehicles in India as on March 31, 2020. Composition of vehicular population in 2020 shows the highest share of two wheelers (74.7 per cent), followed by cars, jeeps and taxis (13.4 per cent), other vehicles (6.9 per cent), goods vehicles (4.4 per cent) and buses (0.7 per cent).

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