Motorists in Mumbai may be notorious for parking in no-parking areas, but you will have to give them their due — they drive safe.
Records compiled by the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) show that private car accidents in the city are on the decline, even though the number of cars in the city is increasing by the day.
According to the records, the city had just a little over 83,000 registered private cars in 1971. And the year saw 10,000 car accidents. Fast forward to 2008. A whopping 4.92 lakh private cars plied the roads, but the number of accidents was less than 5,000.
Accidents involving BEST buses, police vehicles, fire brigade vehicles and ambulances have also reduced over the years. Only auto rickshaw and bike mishaps have gone up.
The number of private car mishaps has come down significantly in the past four years. The year 2006 saw 8,007 car accidents; in 2007, the number was down to 7001; and in 2008, it dipped sharply to 4,651 cases of car accidents.
The data, sourced from the assistant commissioner of police, traffic training institute, show that the number of total accidents in the city have hovered around the 25,000 mark right from 1971 to 2008 — a period of almost four decades.
What comes as a pleasant surprise is that not just private cars mishaps, accidents involving BEST buses, ambulances, police and fire brigade vehicles, as well as state transport buses, have declined over the past few decades.
However, accidents involving two wheelers and auto rickshaws have shot up. While only 1,477 two-wheeler accidents were reported in 1971, the number crossed the 5,000 mark in 2008.
Auto rickshaws have mushroomed in the city over the past two decades, and so have auto accidents. The year 2000 saw as many as 2,823 auto mishaps. The number climbed to 3,603 in 2007, and fell only slightly to 3,051 in 2008.
The number of tempo accidents too has risen sharply between 2005 and 2008 — from 1,002 in 2005 to 1,849 in 2008.
