Lko second among 4 U.P. cities with most road mishap deaths

Lucknow Among seven UP cities, which have a population of over 10 lakh, road accidents reported in Agra, Lucknow, Kanpur and Prayagraj have been the most fatal, suggests the recently released data of the National Crime Records Bureau of 2022.

The data stated that as many as 698 deaths and 91 injuries were reported in 729 road accidents in Agra, followed by 643 deaths and 994 injuries in 1408 incidents in Lucknow, 640 deaths and 955 injuries in 1595 road accidents in Kanpur and 603 deaths and 886 injuries in 1370 road accidents in Prayagraj.

Three other cities on the most fatal list are Ghaziabad, which witnessed 362 deaths and 661 injuries in 883 road accidents, followed by Meerut, which reported 149 deaths and 443 injuries in 451 road accidents and Varanasi where 145 people were killed and 86 people were injured in 133 road accidents.

As per the NCRB figures, 24109 people died and 21696 were injured in 36875 road accidents in 2022, which is the highest number of fatalities among all states and union territories of the country. In number of fatalities in road accidents, UP stands top on the list, followed by Tamil Naidu and Maharashtra where 15748 people were killed and 23878 were injured in 30546 accidents. On the third spot is Madhya Pradesh with 13918 casualties followed by Rajasthan which reported 11103 deaths and 22249 injuries in 23620 road accidents. As many as 168370 deaths and 407881 injuries were reported in 433111 road accidents in all 28 states while 2730 deaths and 15277 injuries were reported in 13567 road accidents in eight union territories.

Although Tamil Naidu, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka witnessed larger number of road accidents ( 64105, 51965, 43592 and 39765) respectively as compared to UP, the number of people who died was less (17884, 13918, 4317 and 11705) in these four states respectively. A total of 67703, 51264, 49317 and 48154 people were injured in Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka respectively.

“Speedy and recklessly driven vehicles are turning out to be the major reason behind steep rise in road accidents,” said SP Singh, a traffic expert and former member of National Road Safety Council, adding , “The speed of vehicles is increasing due to widening of roads especially in cities like Lucknow and a little fault could lead to major collisions. The city riders driving at high speeds do not recognize the dangers of losing control of their vehicles”. He said around 20 per cent of deaths in accidents could be reduced by curbing speedy and reckless driving.

Railway tracks in UP are also most fatal

The railway tracks in the state are also the most fatal with as many as 3166 deaths and 35 injuries reported in 3190 railway accidents, according to the NCRB data of 2022, followed by 3145 deaths and 1686 injuries in 4827 railway accidents in Maharashtra, 1275 deaths in as many incidents reported from Madhya Pradesh, 1446 deaths and six injuries in 1444 incidents reported in Bihar and 1101 deaths and 26 injuries in 1127 railway accidents in Haryana.

A total of 20792 deaths and 2457 injuries were reported in 23139 railway accidents across the country, including 20043 deaths and 2350 injuries in 22285 accidents reported from 28 states and 749 deaths and 107 injuries in 854 railway accidents reported from eight union territories.