Road accidents in city on the rise, state shows slight decline

MUMBAI: Road accidents in Mumbai rose in 2024, with 4,935 incidents and 1,108 deaths. However, Maharashtra saw a slight overall decline in fatalities.

MUMBAI: Statistics on road accidents compiled by the transport department show that accidents in the city are on the rise. In 2024, between January and November, Mumbai and its metropolitan region saw 4,935 road accidents, 2,319 of these in Mumbai alone. The mishaps resulted in the death of 1,108 people, 299 of them in the city.

Road accidents in city on the rise, state shows slight decline

The good news is that the state statistics show a slight improvement. Between January and November, the number of deaths from road accidents came down by 98 in Maharashtra. The state saw 13,823 fatalities resulting out of 32,801 road accidents during this period.

According to officials from the transport department, this is the first time after Covid-19 that road accident fatalities have come down. “There is a decline in accident fatalities between January and November, and we expect it to remain like this in December as well, the figures of which are currently being compiled,” said a senior official from the transport department. “We have taken several steps on the highways and the expressways to contain the fatalities.”

A few of these steps listed by the official were the deployment of interceptor vehicles on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, 24/7 CCTV surveillance and the installation of an Intelligent Traffic Management System. “We also issued 200,000-plus e-challans in the last 12 to 15 months to heavy vehicles plying on the extreme right lane,” said the official. “Likewise, on the Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi Mahamarg, we placed RTO officers with breath analysers, tyre-gauging devices and interceptor vehicles.”

The radar-based interceptor vehicles, which have the capacity to issue 1000 e-challans an hour, will be on the road in the next 15 to 30 days. Hindustan Times had written about this on December 28 in the article ‘RTOs receive interceptor vehicles but without radars’. Sources said they would use 69 interceptors in cities to chiefly catch motorists riding two-wheelers without helmets, as 64% of the total fatalities were two-wheeler riders/pillions, of whom 80% were found sans helmets at the time of an accident.

However, when it comes to training those who apply for two-wheeler driving licences, the assets procured by the RTOs are underutilised. For instance, at the Andheri RTO, inside the simulator training cabin, the machine procured by the authorities is lying unused on the third floor. The applicants who come to get a learners’ license are made to give a computerised test and answer questions on road safety but the simulator is not used.

“These simulators are used sometimes to test applicants but it is not mandatory,” justified a senior official from the transport department. “If an RTO inspector feels there is a further need to test the applicant, then they use it.”

On Thursday, the Andheri RTO conducted a session in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and basic life-saving training, which was attended by 70 persons who were then given certificates. The lecturer also spoke on road accidents and their causes such as speeding, drunk driving and rash driving.