This City Tops The List Of Road Accident Deaths In India
Delhi recorded 1,457 road accident deaths in 2023, making it the most dangerous city for road users among 53 major cities across the country. The National Crime Records Bureau report shows this grim statistic puts Delhi ahead of all other major urban areas in terms of road fatalities.
This means about four people die and thirteen get injured on Delhi roads every single day. The city saw 5,715 road crashes in 2023, which was 8.2 per cent of all road accidents reported in major cities that year. Despite having similar traffic volumes to other big cities, Delhi's death rate from accidents is much higher.
Bengaluru came second with 4,980 road crashes, followed by Chennai with 3,653 crashes. However, when it comes to actual deaths, Bengaluru had 915 fatalities and Jaipur had 848 deaths, both much lower than Delhi's numbers.
Delhi has over 15 million registered vehicles. This is almost equal to the combined number of vehicles in Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai together. These four cities have nearly 31 million registered vehicles between them, but Delhi alone carries almost half this load on its roads.
The pressure on Delhi's road infrastructure is enormous because of this vehicle density. More vehicles on the same amount of road space naturally leads to more accidents. The city's road network was not designed to handle this many vehicles, which creates dangerous conditions for everyone.
Motorcycle and scooter riders faced the highest danger on Delhi roads in 2023. A total of 622 two-wheeler riders died in accidents, making them the largest group of road accident victims. This shows how vulnerable people on bikes and scooters are when they share roads with cars, buses, and trucks.
Car occupants accounted for 327 deaths, while people in three-wheelers like auto-rickshaws faced 95 deaths. Trucks caused 94 deaths and buses were involved in 34 fatalities. Even bicycle riders were not safe, with 78 dying in road accidents during the year.
Pedestrians also face serious danger on Delhi roads. The city topped the list for pedestrian deaths at designated crossing points. A total of 159 people died while crossing roads at marked crossings in 2023. This was much higher than Durg-Bhilai Nagar in Chhattisgarh, which came second with 115 such deaths.
Delhi Traffic Police point to several main reasons for so many road accidents. Over-speeding is the biggest cause, made worse by poorly lit roads that make it hard to see at night. Bad road design creates dangerous spots where accidents happen repeatedly.
Dangerous driving and drunk driving also cause many accidents, especially late at night when there are fewer police around to catch violators. About 20 per cent of road deaths happen when vehicles crash into fixed objects like dividers or walls. These accidents usually occur at night and often involve drunk drivers leaving bars and clubs.
The 2023 numbers actually show a small improvement from 2022, when Delhi had 1,461 deaths in 5,560 road accidents. In 2021, the city saw 4,720 road accidents that killed 1,239 people and injured 3,989 others. While deaths have decreased slightly, the numbers are still very high.
Additional Commissioner of Police Dinesh Kumar Gupta says Delhi Traffic Police have taken various steps to reduce accidents. These include finding accident hotspots, studying what causes accidents at dangerous locations, and creating solutions based on this analysis.
However, road safety experts say these efforts are not enough. S. Velmurugan from the Central Road Research Institute says current measures have reached their limit. The city has only about 200 speed cameras at 75 locations, which is far too few for a city Delhi's size.
The Intelligent Traffic Management System project has been stuck in planning for fifteen years, showing how slowly important safety improvements happen. This delay represents the bigger problems that prevent Delhi from making its roads safer.
Via TOI