Bengaluru: Karnataka has been named as one among the top five states on the list of road accident fatalities. The other are Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Rajasthan.
They accounted for over 40 percent of the deaths in 2014. Bengaluru alone, has seen the highest number of deaths due to dangerous and reckless driving in the country. Nearly 90 per cent of accidents reported in the city in 2014 were caused due to dangerous and reckless driving. Of the 5,004 accidents in 2014, 4,482 were caused due to reckless driving. These 4,482 incidents caused the death of 626 people, and 2,707 suffered injuries.
As per the study, UP topped the list with 16,284 deaths, but Tamil Nadu with over 15,000 lives lost was much worse given its relatively smaller size. Learning from global practices, this is for the first time crashes and deaths have been analyzed under 13 categories -both state-wise and citywise -such as the causes of crashes, place of occurrence and culpability .
For example, the report notes how about one in six road crashes was reported at a place near a residential area both in rural and urban zones. It also records that 5.3 per cent of road crashes were reported at places near schools, colleges or other educational institutions.
“It’s interesting that more detailed data is included in the report. But unless police investigations are scientifically carried out, the collation and evaluation of data has no relevance,” said road safety expert Rohit Baluja.
