While all major cities in India saw a reduction in traffic accidents and related deaths in 2019, Bengaluru is the only city to report an increase in such incidents and related casualties last year compared to 2018. These are one of the findings of the ‘Road Accidents in India 2019’ report recently released by the Union government.
The report notes that while Bengaluru had recorded 4611 road accidents in 2018, the number had jumped to 4,684 in 2019. Similarly, the increase in numbers can be noted in terms of fatalities and injuries related to these accidents for the Garden City. The number of persons who lost their lives due to road accidents in Bengaluru rose by 82 in 2019 with 768 deaths compared to 686 such deaths reported in 2018. The number of injured persons related to road accidents which was 4129 in 2018, rose to 4,250 in 2019.
At the same time, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, the other bigger metropolises in the country reported lesser number of accidents than in 2018. While Chennai reported 7,580 road accidents in 2018, it reported 6,871 deaths in 2019. The less number of accidents also reflected in the number of lives lost due to road accidents. Chennai saw a reduction of eight deaths with 1252 deaths road crash related fatalities in 2019. The number of injured also reduced to 6702 in 2019 from 7,438 in 2018. Similarly, Delhi which saw 6,515 accidents in 2018, saw the number of road accidents in 2019 to reduce to 5,610. The number of road deaths in 2019 also reduced to 1,463 compared to 1,690 to that of 2018. The number of injuries also saw a similar trend with 5152 persons injured compared to 6,086 persons injured in 2018. The same trend can be observed in Mumbai and Kolkata too.
Although Bengaluru saw an increase in the number of accidents and related fatalities, it remained in the top three worst cities for road accidents. Chennai and Delhi retained the position of two worst cities. This despite both Chennai and Delhi reporting a decrease of accidents by 9.4% and 13.9% respectively.
Least number of drunk driving deaths
Among other findings, Bengaluru reported the least number of deaths as a result of drunken driving. Only seven such deaths were reported in the city while Chennai and Delhi reported 49 and 45 such deaths respectively.