India witnessed a grim milestone in 2024 as fatalities from road accidents climbed to an all-time high, crossing 1.77 lakh deaths. The alarming data was officially presented in Parliament, highlighting a persistent and growing public safety crisis on the nation's roads.
Parliamentary Data Reveals Sobering Statistics
In a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari shared the provisional figures for the calendar year 2024. The minister stated that 1,77,177 people lost their lives in road crashes across all categories of roads in the country. This number includes data from West Bengal sourced from the eDAR portal.
This marks a significant increase from the previous year. In 2023, road accidents had claimed approximately 1.73 lakh lives, indicating that the trend is moving in the wrong direction despite various safety initiatives.
National Highways Account for a Third of Deaths
Delving deeper into the breakdown, Minister Gadkari provided a separate reply focusing on the high-speed corridors. The data is particularly concerning for National Highways (NHs), which are designed for safer travel. In 2024, a staggering 54,433 fatalities, accounting for about 31% of all road deaths, occurred on these highways.
This high proportion of deaths on controlled-access roads underscores critical issues in engineering, enforcement, and driver behavior that need urgent, targeted intervention.
Experts Call for Systemic Overhaul and Broader Involvement
Road safety experts have consistently pointed out that the government's approach requires a fundamental shift to curb the rising death toll. A key recommendation is the mandatory scientific investigation of every fatal crash to determine the exact cause, rather than attributing it broadly to driver error.
"Fixing responsibility across all agencies involved—from road design and maintenance to vehicle regulation and policing—is essential," emphasized one expert. They further argued that the government cannot tackle this mammoth problem alone.
"The magnitude of the problem is huge. The government must involve civil society and a large number of non-government entities to deal with this crisis rather than depending on only a few of them," the expert added, calling for a more collaborative, nationwide mission on road safety.
The release of this data in Parliament precedes the ministry's formal annual report on road accidents, which typically provides a more detailed analysis of causes, locations, and victim profiles. The record numbers for 2024 are set to intensify the debate on the effectiveness of current road safety laws and their implementation across states.
