Accident fatalities in Tamil Nadu dropped by 0.04% in October 2024, reveals RTI query
PIO cites strenuous efforts taken by State for dip in road accident rate despite vehicular population spike
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CHENNAI: The Commissionerate of Transport and Road Safety has claimed that the number of road accident fatalities per 10,000 vehicles has fallen from 19 in 2000 to four in October 2024, despite a sevenfold spike in the vehicular population in the corresponding period.
In a reply to an RTI petition filed by activist K Anbazhagan, the Public Information Officer of the Commissionerate cited the sincere efforts taken by the state government and said that the road accident rate in comparison to the state’s vehicular population has fallen from 0.98 per cent in 2000 to 0.15 per cent in October 2024.
The road accident death rate has also come down from 0.16 per cent in 2000 to 0.04 per cent in October 2024, it said, adding that the vehicular population has increased from 50,12,810 in 2000 to 3,68,42,523 in 2024 recording a seven-time increase.
“The government has taken various initiatives to reduce the number of accidents by 50 per cent by 2030 as per the Sustainable Development Goals and the 2020 Stockholm Declaration,” it noted.
As many as 62,637 driving licences of individuals who committed traffic violations like speeding, overloading of goods, overloading of persons in good carriages, drunken driving, red light jumping and using mobile phones while driving till October 2024 were suspended as per the Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety’s direction.
The RTI reply said that the department carried out enforcement activities by checking 6.93 lakh vehicles up to October 2024-25 as against 11.91 lakh vehicles in 2023-24. It has issued 1.28 lakh check reports while detaining 16,042. The officials detected 21,917 persons without driving licences, 14,174 for not wearing seat belts, 8,949 for non-wearing helmets, 6092 for improper number plates and 7,973 for bikes without hazard lights.
Attributing the spike in road accidents to the increase in the vehicular population and private vehicles, the PIO pointed out the trend of people preferring to own vehicles over public transport post-COVID-19.
To reduce the accidents, the state government has formed a special task force headed by the Transport Commissioner to identify road accident hotspots and rectify them. The government has allocated Rs 90.37 crore for the same. To execute the road safety projects and create awareness, all the district collectors were allocated Rs 25 lakh each in 2024-25.
