Road fatalities rise by 21 per cent in Odisha

BHUBANESWAR: Road fatalities have assumed alarming proportions in Odisha. Despite the direction of the Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety to reduce road fatalities by 50 per cent, the State has registered a 21 per cent rise in road mishap deaths in the last six years.

Road fatalities in the State rose from 3,931 in 2014 to 4,738 in 2020 even as the apex court panel had issued directions for initiating steps to reduce the same by 10 per cent every year from 2015 onwards. Although accidents and fatalities had dropped marginally - 11.27 per cent and 11.15 per cent respectively in 2020 compared to 2019 due to lockdown following the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been abnormal increase in fatalities by about 16 per cent from January to September this year exposing the shoddy enforcement measures.

Odisha was among the top 10 states where the accident fatality rate (death per 100 accidents) was above the national average. It was 48.2 in the State against the national average of 36.65.  As per the statistics tabled during the State Road Safety Council (SRSC) meet on Thursday, over-speeding contributed to 69 per cent of the deaths followed by violation of helmet law (41 per cent) and hit and run cases (20 per cent) drawing the ire of the apex court committee, which has pulled up the State government for not adopting a focused approach to preventing fatalities by enforcing stringent measures. 

The highest 53 per cent two-wheeler users were among people killed on roads last year followed by 13.33 per cent pedestrians and 8.73 per cent car, taxi, van and light motor vehicle travellers. Statistics revealed, the maximum 1,419 people in 25-35 age group, 1,096 in 18-25, 1,050 in 35-45, 649 in 45-60, 179 of 60 years and above and 219 persons of less than 18 years died in road mishaps in 2020.