Road crashes claimed 1.55 lakh lives in India in 2021, the highest ever in a calendar year

The NCRB said it has made an effort to capture comprehensive information on road accidents using the revised proforma and published the first report for the year 2014 and this edition is the eighth in the series.

Over 1.55 lakh lives were lost in road crashes across India in 2021 — an average of 426 daily or 18 every single hour — which is the highest death figures recorded in any calendar year so far, according to official data. Besides the deaths, 3.71 lakh people were also injured in 4.03 lakh road accidents across the country last year, according to National Crime Records Bureau data under the ‘Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India – 2021’ head.

While the number of deaths due to crashes reached its highest last year, the number of road accidents and persons injured has come down compared to previous years, the report of the NCRB, which functions under the Ministry of Home Affairs, revealed.