India is a signatory to the second worldwide excessive degree conference on street safety held in Brazil in 2015, stated popularly as the Brasilia statement, which, inter-alia, resolved to halve the deaths and accidents from injuries through 2020 and to include this target within the 2030 agenda for sustainable development by way of the participating nations.
Street accidents continue to be a main cause of demise, disabilities and hospitalization in the us of a regardless of our dedication and efforts. India ranks first in the range of road coincidence deaths across the 199 international locations and money owed for nearly 11% of the accident related deaths in the international.
A total number of 449,002 accidents took place in the U. S . A . All through the calendar yr 2019leading to 151,113 deaths and 451,361 accidents. In percentage phrases, the number of accidents reduced by three.86 % in 2019over that of the preceding 12 months, at the same time as the twist of fate associated deaths reduced by way of 0.20 % and the persons injured decreased by means of 3.86.
Road accidents have been profiled by road category, type of impacting vehicle, type of collision, age of victim, gender and road user category which inter-alia bring out the following:
- National Highways which comprise of 2.03 percent of total road network, continued to account for a disproportionate share of 35.7 per cent of deaths in 2019 pointing to need for improved enforcement and correctives to be put on National Highways. State Highways which account for
3.01% of the road length accounted for 24.8 percent of deaths. Other Roads which constitute about 95 % of the total roads were responsible for the balance 39% deaths respectively, and electronic monitoring of the same. - Further, National Highways falling under the administrative control of NHAI account for 66 percent of road accident related deaths followed by National Highways falling under State PWD which account for 25 percent of Road Accident deaths. The remaining 9 percent Road Accident deaths are accounted for by National Highways under other Departments.
- Two wheelers account for 35% of total road accident deaths on National Highways falling under NHAI, followed by cars, taxis, Vans & LMVs (18.6%) and pedestrians(14%) followed by share of Trucks of (10.7%) and share of buses of (4.9%) and share of bicycles at (2.9%) . These are not very different from the percentage share for these road user categories for National Highways as a whole and accordingly requisite change in the design of the road/speed etc that may be warranted needs to be initiated by all the controlling agencies for NH
- The working age group of 18 – 60 accounted for a share of 84 percent in the total road accident deaths.
- The share of males in number of total accident deaths was 86% while the share of females hovered around 14% in 2019.
- In 2019, the Ministry focused on the identification and rectification of Black spots and identified 5583 black spots in the country in 2018.
Road accidents are multi-causal and are often the result of an interplay of various factors. like (i) human error (ii) road environment and (iii) vehicular condition. The information received from the States/UTs on the causes of road accidents brings out inter-alia the following:
- Under the category of Traffic Rule Violations, over speeding is a major killer, accounting for 67.3% of the persons killed followed by driving on the wrong side of the road which accounted for 6.1% of the accident related deaths. Use of mobile phones accounted for 3.3% of the deaths with drunken driving accounting for 3.5% of the persons killed. Further the numbers of persons killed for these reasons in 2019 were much higher than in
2018 suggesting need for improved enforcement of MVA 2019. - Driving without valid license/learners license accounts for 15% of accidents.
- About 30% of deaths can be attributed to non use of helmets and 14% of deaths can be attributed to non use of seat belts.
- Vehicles more than 10 years accounted for 41% of accident related deaths.
- Overloaded vehicles accounted for about 10% deaths.
Both road accidents and accident related killings are more a rural phenomenon than an urban phenomenon. Thus in 2019, the share of number of person killed in urban and rural area was 32.9 per cent and 67.1 per cent. In terms of those killed in 2019, Delhi retains its first rank followed by Jaipur, Chennai, Bengaluru and Kanpur among the million plus cities.
Amendments in various penalties under Motor Vehicles Amendment Act – 2019
| Section | Old Provision / Penalty | New Proposed Provision / Minimum Penalties | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 177 | General | Rs.100 | Rs.500 |
| New 177 A | Rules of road regulation violation | Rs.100 | Rs.500 |
| 178 | Travel without ticket | Rs.200 | Rs.500 |
| 179 | Disobedience of orders of authorities | Rs.500 | Rs.2,000 |
| 180 | Unauthorized use of vehicles without licence | Rs.1,000 | Rs.5,000 |
| 181 | Driving without licence | Rs.500 | Rs.5,000 |
| 182 | Driving despite disqualification | Rs.500 | Rs.10,000 |
| 182 B | Over vehicles | New | Rs.5,000 |
| 183 | Over speeding | Rs.400 | Rs.1,000 for LMV Rs.2,000 for Medium passenger vehicle |
| 184 | Dangerous driving penalty | Rs.1,000 | Upto Rs. 5,000 |
| 185 | Drunken driving | Rs.2,000 | Rs.10,000 |
| 189 | Speeding / Racing | Rs.500 | Rs.5,000 |
| 192 A | Vehicle without permit | Upto Rs.5,000 | Upto Rs.10,000 |
| 193 | Aggregators (violations of licencing conditions) | New | Rs.25,000 to Rs.1,00,000 |
| 194 | Overloading | Rs.2,000 and Rs.1,000 per extra tonne | Rs.20,000 and Rs.2,000 per extra tonne |
| 194 A | Overloading of passengers | Rs.1,000 per extra passenger | |
| 194 B | Seat belt | Rs.100 | Rs.1,000 |
| 194 C | Overloading of two wheelers | Rs.100 | Rs.2,000 Disqualification for 3 months for licence |
| 194 D | Helmets | Rs.100 | Rs.1,000 |
| 194 E | Not providing way for emergency vehicles | New | Rs.10,000 |
| 196 | Driving without Insurance | Rs.1,000 | Rs.2,000 |
| 199 | Offences by Juveniles | New | Guardian / owner shall be deemed to be guilty. Rs.25,000 with 3 yrs imprisonment. For Juvenile to be tried under JJ Act. Registration of Motor Vehicle to be Cancelled. |
| 206 | Power of Officers to impound documents | Suspension of driving licenses u/s 183,184, 185, 189, 190, 194C,194D, 194E. | |
| 210 B | Offences committed by enforcing authorities | Twice the penalty under the relevant section. |