HYDERABAD: With India losing one life to a road crash every three minutes, the Road Safety Network (RSN) — a coalition of civil society organisations working to reduce traffic fatalities has called for urgent data-driven reforms to make roads safer and halve deaths by 2030.
The data from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), RSN revealed that Telangana reported 22,903 road crashes and 7,660 fatalities in 2023, up from 21,619 crashes and 7,559 deaths the previous year. The network also revealed a World Bank estimate that road crashes cost India 3-5% of its GDP annually, with low-income families bearing the brunt of the loss.
Despite ongoing enforcement drives and awareness campaigns, Telangana remains among the top ten high-burden states for road fatalities, accounting for nearly 4.5% of the national toll in 2023. Speeding continues to be the leading cause of death, responsible for nearly 70% of all fatalities nationwide.
Vulnerable road users such as two-wheeler riders, pedestrians and cyclists make up nearly two-thirds of the state’s crash victims.
On Thursday, RSN released a white paper titled “Solving India’s Road Safety Crisis with Data-Backed, Scientific and Evidence-Based Solutions,” outlining a clear road map to cut road deaths by half by 2030.