NEW DELHI: At least 98 twowheeler riders without helmets died daily in 2017 while another 79 car occupants lost their lives every day in accidents because they were not wearing seatbelts, according to a Road Accident Report. The use of cellphones while driving also claimed about nine lives every day last year.
While the report, based on data provided by state police and transport departments and released on Monday, showed a slight decrease in the total number of fatalities — from nearly 1.51 lakh in 2016 to about 1.48 lakh in 2017 —there has been a steep increase in the number of people dying because of failure to use safety gear or devices.

In cases where not wearing seatbelts resulted in fatalities, Karnataka had the maximum — 4,035 dead — followed by Tamil Nadu with 3,497 and Uttar Pradesh third with 2,897 deaths.

For example, fatalities caused by not wearing crash helmets rose to 36,000 in 2017 as compared to 10,135 the previous year. Tamil Nadu had the highest share of these fatalities at 5,211, followed by Uttar Pradesh with 4,406 and Madhya Pradesh third with 3,183 lives lost.

About 42% of the dead (in the two-wheeler category) were pillion riders. Gujarat was the only state to report more pillion riders without helmets dying as compared to helmetless drivers of two-wheelers getting killed.

Uttar Pradesh had the highest number of fatalities — 1,512 — that occurred while vehicle drivers were using mobile phones while driving. Maharashtra was second-worst with 282 deaths and Orissa reported 257 deaths. Delhi reported only three fatalities in this category.

Road safety experts said the big jump in these figures is primarily because of increased focus on identifying the exact causes of road deaths in the past two years; 2017 was the second year that the government captured deaths caused due to these three traffic violations.

According to the report, nearly 67% of road deaths were due to speeding.