19 deaths/hour: Road accident toll in 2022

CHENNAI: Nineteen persons died in road accidents every hour in India in 2022, revealed a report by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), adding that the number of mishaps went up by an alarming 12 per cent to over 4.6 lakh.

Among the states, Tamil Nadu recorded the highest number of road accidents (64,105 or 13.9%) and the second highest number of fatalities (17,884 or 10.6%). On the positive side, Chennai which topped the country in the number of accidents in 2021 has improved its rankings to five with 3,452 accidents in 2022 – 31 per cent less than the previous, said the report titled ‘Road accidents in India - 2022’.

The report said 53 accidents took place every hour in the country. “A total of 4,61,312 road accidents have been reported by states and Union Territories (UTs) during the calendar year 2022, which claimed 1,68,491 lives and caused 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,” the report said.

Those in the age group of 18 - 45 years accounted for 66.5 per cent of victims and people in the working age group of 18 – 60 years constituted 83.4 per cent of total road accident fatalities, it added.

As per the report, of the 4,61,312 accidents recorded in the country, 1,51,997 (32.9 per cent) took place on National Highways (NH), including expressways, 1,06,682 (23.1 per cent) on State Highways and the remaining 2,02,633 (43.9 per cent) on other roads.

“Out of the total of 1,68,491 fatalities reported in 2022, 61,038 (36.2 per cent) were on national highways, 41,012 (24.3 per cent) were on state highways and 66,441 (39.4 per cent) were on other roads,” it added.