Mumbai: Death on roads see a new low in four years

The number of road traffic deaths in the city has dropped by 22 per cent over the last four years, but pedestrian fatalities is still a concern if the Mumbai Road Safety Report 2018 is anything to go by.

Published by Mumbai Traffic Control Branch (MTCB) in joint collaboration with Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Road Safety (BIGRS), the Mumbai Road Safety Report 2018 in it's key findings have highlighted that the total number of fatalities which was about 611 in 2015 has dropped to 475 in 2018. Additionally, the number of road crashes injuries has also declined from 4029 in 2015 to 3292 in 2018.

BIGRS which is an international program providing technical assistance to city governments to expand road safety efforts as a part of it's five-year-old initiative across ten cities and five countries, unveiled the report on Thursday.

"Going by the report, pedestrians continue to be the most affected by road crashes. While pedestrians account for 51 per cent of the total road traffic deaths, vulnerable road users that includes pedestrians, bike riders and cyclists account for 93 per cent of total deaths. Also, the pattern of deaths by gender was similar to the previous years, with men accounting for 85 per cent of road crash deaths. If one considers the age of road crash victims, men aged between 20-29 were most vulnerable to road accidents, followed by senior citizens," said Sara Whitehead from Vital Strategies institute.

The report further says that Western Express Highway (WEH) and Eastern Express Highway (EEH) continue to remain the highest risk corridors of the city. Other soft spots of the city were SV Road, Sion Trombay Road, Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar Road, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Road and Link Road. However, the report also claims that fatality figures in WEH and EEH have come down as compared to previous year.

"Reduction in the number of fatalities by 22 per cent is a huge achievement for a city like Mumbai. Most of the accidents tend to happen during weekends. With the help of traffic police, we are planning to redesign the streets and make it more pedestrian-friendly. Concerned authorities of the municipality is also being consulted to ensure better safety design measures and efficient capacity building. Allocation of space, managing the crossways and digitisation of statistics is something we are looking forward to work with in future," said Abhimanyu Prakash, senior program manager, National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO).