The story so far: In spite of several years of policymaking to improve road safety, India remains among the worst-performing countries in this area with a toll of 1,47,913 lives lost to road traffic accidents in 2017 as per Ministry of Road Transport and Highways statistics. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) figure for the same year is 1,50,093 road accident deaths. Further, India’s data on road crash mortality are seen as an undercount, and the Global Burden of Disease report for 2017 estimates, based on verbal autopsy sources, that there were 2,18,876 deaths. The persistently high annual death toll brings into question the country’s ability to meet Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.6, which aims to halve the fatalities and injuries from road traffic accidents by 2030. The United Nations is holding a high-level meeting on Global Road Safety on June 30 and July 1, 2022 to review the progress and challenges.
What are the new findings on road safety?
A new analytical series on road safety worldwide, published by The Lancet, proposes that India and other countries could cut accident-related deaths by 25 to 40% based on evidence that preventive interventions produce good outcomes when applied to four well-known risk factors — high speed, driving under the influence of alcohol, not using proper helmets, not wearing seat-belts and not using child restraints. Globally, about 14 lakh people die in traffic accidents annually, and nearly five crore are injured; over half of those killed are pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists; Low and Middle Income Countries (LMIC) bear the maximum burden of road fatalities and injuries, with high economic costs — an average of three to five per cent of GDP — suffered by these countries in 2014.
