Road accidents in India: Over-speeding leading cause of road accident deaths in 2023

Over 1.7 lakh people died in road accidents in 2023, the highest since 2005, according to a report released by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. This is up from 1.68 lakh in 2022. The number of accidents rose from 4.6 to 4.8 lakh.

While the number of accidents and deaths dipped significantly in 2020 during the pandemic, accident severity peaked in this year, indicating that despite a fall in the number of accidents, the accidents became deadlier. Since then, accident severity has fallen from 37.2 in 2020 to 36 in 2023. Still, it shows an overall rising trend, increasing from 21.6 in 2005.

Cause of death

Over-speeding continued to be the leading cause of road accident deaths. Over 68% of total deaths were attributed to over-speeding in 2023.

Vehicle type

Around 44% of total deaths were of those riding on two-wheelers. Around 35% (27,539) of these deaths were caused due to another two-wheeler riding in violation of traffic rules.

State-wise deaths

Uttar Pradesh recorded the most number of deaths (23,652), similar to 2022 and 2021, while Andaman and Nicobar islands recorded the least (24).

When it comes to cities with at least 10 lakh people, Delhi, Bengaluru and Jaipur recorded the most number of deaths. Amritsar, Chandigarh and Srinagar recorded the least.

Differences in number of accidents and deaths between cities and States are to be read along with other characteristics of different States and cities like vehicular density, number of vehicles and road lengths.

Other trends that continued in 2023 were that most victims in road accidents fall in the 18 - 45 age bracket (66.4%). Over 85% of the victims were male. Around 40% of road accident deaths happened on roads other than national highways (36.5%) and State highways (22.8%).