Stray animals second biggest reason for road accidents, dogs account for 58 % of them, insurance company report

NEW DELHI: A recent report on road crashes across six mega cities published by a general insurance company has revealed that stray animals are the second biggest reason for accidents, except in Kolkata. Across six cities, “other driver” were the biggest reason for road crashes. Nearly 58% of accidents, caused by animals, involved dogs, followed by cattle (25.4%).
These data are quite in contrast to the reasons for crashes that government’s road accident reports show, which are prepared based on police FIRs.
The first ACKO Accident Index released on Friday is based on a sample size of 1.27 lakh claims that the vehicle owners made to the insurance firm between January and June this year. This index gives details of the reasons for road crashes and most accident-prone areas across Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.
According to the report, besides ‘other driver’ and animals, the other three big reasons for crashes are potholes, rash driving and drunk driving. In the case of Kolkata, stray animals was the fifth reason for road crashes. The report mentions that Chennai recorded the maximum share of such accidents of over 3%. For both Delhi and Bengaluru, the share stood at 2%.
The data show that out of the 1,376 claims made for accidents caused due to animals, 804 involved dogs and 350 involved cattle. “While we often blame bad roads for accidents, the report shows otherwise. Road accidents and fatalities that go along with it are preventable and can be predicted if proven countermeasures are applied. This Index is just a helping hand for our policy-makers and administrators, so that they can place measures across the most accident-prone locations in India that will further help regulate the traffic and considerably reduce accidents,” said Animesh Das, senior director (Motor Underwriting) at ACKO.
In fact, countries that have been successful in reducing road deaths and injuries have linked the crash data recorded by police with hospitals and insurance companies to find the exact reason and for taking necessary measures.
The report said while Delhi-NCR happens to be the most road accident-prone region in the country, Mumbai is close behind. It said while the road accident rate in Delhi was 20.3%, in Mumbai it was 18.2%. Accident rate has been defined as the number of accidents divided by the number of cars in a city.
Sector 12 in Noida in the Delhi NCR region and Ghatkopar (West) in Mumbai were the most accident-prone zones. While Noida Sector-12 accounted for almost 9% of accidents, Ghatkopar (West) registered almost 5% of Mumbai’s accidents.
Among all metros, it was Bengaluru that fared the best, emerging as the least accident-prone city with a recorded accident rate of 16%. The bulk of accidents were recorded in Bommanahalli, which registered almost 9% of accidents while Kalyan Nagar registered close to 8%. The bulk of accidents in Bengaluru have occurred on a 50 km-stretch spanning from Bannerghatta to Hoodi, which also faces snarls.
In the case of Chennai, the accident rate was 18.6% and in Hyderabad it was 18.5%.
In Hyderabad, most ofaccidents were reported in the tech hub of Madhapur. In the case of Chennai, a large number of accidents were recorded in the industrial belts of Guindy, followed by Ambattur and Poonamallee.In Kolkata, accidents were spread across the busiest areas, namely Park Circus in the Central-South area, Shyam Bazar and AC Lane.