India suffers Billions of Dollar every year due to Road Accidents

India suffers more than 50 billion USD every year due to road accidents. The cost include medical expenses, legal fees, property damage, insurance cost and loss of revenue due to death.

The vehicular population in India is only 1% of the global number, yet there is massive cases of injuries and loss of life in road accidents each year in the country. The estimated fatalities due to road accident are 10%. In fact, the death to injury ratio is high in developing countries. Nearly 3% of the India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is lost annually in the country due to road accidents.

There have been a few efforts to estimate the cost of road accidents in India. Reports also suggests that the number of injuries and the associated financial damages in the country are highly underestimated. There are certain issues, related to road crashes, which are either omitted or beyond the scope of the studies. These special problems faced by road crash victims, particularly poor victims, are:

1. Inappropriate medical treatment leading to complications and extended treatments,
2. Loss of job even the victim survives,
3. Loss of property, financial savings, household goods to the victim,
4. Poor condition of surviving family members,
5. Re-location and reduced income of the victim's family etc.  

Major causes of Road Accidents: 

Engineering is one of the major drawbacks for Indian roads. Many a times, engineers are unable to find the right geometrical symmetry for the needed road. Road safety experts feel the sloppy attitude of the road owning agencies, whether it’s the National Highway Authority or the State Highway Authority, behind this large quantum of national loss. There is also lack of “political will” to tackle the menace. 

"The best example is the photo shown below (clicked on 17^th Sep. 2014) in which a truck loaded with goods has met with an opposite to the People’s Medical College, Bypass road, Bhopal."

Each year, at the same spot a good number of trucks receive the same fate because of the ill-planned road divider, causing a huge loss to the nation in terms of damage to the vehicle, goods, road, and off course to the human life (record can be verified). But our concerned government agencies are not at all bothered after all it’s the common man who is going to bear the heat      
  

Need of the Hour:

High rate of road accidents despite of lesser vehicles call for better road safety management, better policies, safer roads, safer vehicles, advanced post-accident relief mechanism, and above all better enforcement of regulations.