J'khand among top 5 states in road accident deaths

RANCHI: Jharkhand is among one of the top states where road accidents have caused more deaths than injuries contrary to the national trend, according to the latest report - Accidental deaths and suicides in India 2022, published by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). Other states with high fatalities are Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar and Mizoram.
In 2022, Jharkhand saw 5,175 road accidents in which 3,898 people died and 3,747 got injured, registering a 9.5% rise in accidents vis-a-vis 2021.Of the total deaths, 3,481 were male and 417 female. In 2021, total road accidents stood at 4,728. Contrary to this, as many as 4,46,768 road accidents were reported in the country in 2022 in which 1,71,100 died and 4,23,158 were injured.

According to the report, over-speeding has been the biggest killer on the state roads and accidents and fatalities involved mostly two-wheelers. As many as 1,929 deaths were reported involving two-wheelers and 1,801 were injured.
Most of the road accidents cases took place on national highways (2,125) in which 1,699 died. It was followed by state highways with 1,069 cases in which 812 died and 836 were injured. Maximum (933) road accidents took place between 3pm and 6pm. Among the road accident trends, heavy vehicle (truck/lorry) killed 276 people and injured 218. Bus accidents claimed 102 lives and injured 230, while SUV/cars etc killed 473 and injured 527. As many as 83 pedestrians too died and 61 injured after being hit by vehicles.
On the cause of accidents, the report stated that as many as 339 cases of callous/over-taking incidents were reported in which 290 died and 532 injured. "In 4,128 incidents of overspeeding, 2,469 died and 4,128 injured and 203 case of drink driving was reported in which 125 died and 219 injured," read the report.
Other reasons included fatigue of drivers which led to 23 incidents in which 54 died and 62 injured, while 51 cases of vehicle defect led to 37 deaths and 57 injuries followed by 90 cases of accidents due to animal crossing killing 91 people and injuring 142 persons. "Weather conditions led to 251 accidents in which 139 died and 164 injured and 142 cases of poor visibility killed 117 and 74 got injured," it added.