According to the pattern seen over the last five years, the time span between 6pm to 9pm recorded the maximum number of road accidents in 2021, as per government statistics.
The time span between 3pm to 6pm was the second riskiest with regards to road accidents, making afternoon and evening times the most dangerous to be on the road as it had almost 39 percent of the total recorded road accidents.
On the contrary, the time span between 12am to 6am was regarded as the safest as it saw less than 10 percent of the total road accidents registered in 2021.
The annual report ‘Road Accidents in India — 2021’, put out by the ministry of road transport and highways, displayed that Uttar Pradesh had the highest number of fatalities resulting from road accidents on national highways. Tamil Nadu recorded the highest number of road accidents on National Highways in 2021.
Elaborating on spatial and intertemporal distribution of accidents, the report also highlighted that the road accidents and accident related deaths were more of a rural occurrence.
“Hence, in 2021, about 69 per cent of road accidents death took place in rural area where as urban area accounted for 31 per cent of total deaths in the country,” it said.
In 2021, road accidents in India claimed about 1.5 lakh lives and caused injuries to more than 3.8 lakh people, according to the data.
Top 10 states in number of accidents on National Highways
States/UTs 2021 % Share in Total
Tamil Nadu 16,869 13.1
Uttar Pradesh 14,540 11.3
Karnataka 11,462 8.9
Madhya Pradesh 11,030 8.6
Andhra Pradesh 8, 241 6.4
Kerala 8,048 6.2
Maharashtra 7,501 5.8
Telangana 7,214 5.6
Rajasthan 6,424 5.0
Bihar 4,349 3.4
Top 10 states in number of fatalities on National Highways
States/UTs 2021 % Share in Total
Uttar Pradesh 8,506 15.2
Tamil Nadu 5,263 9.4
Maharashtra 4,080 7.3
Rajasthan 3,829 6.8
Andhra Pradesh 3,602 6.4
Bihar 3,517 6.3
Karnataka 3,487 6.2
Madhya Pradesh 3,389 6.1
Telangana 2,735 4.9
West Bengal 2,177 3.9
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