AN ASSESSMENT OF KERALA’S ROAD ACCIDENTS POSITION IN THE NATIONAL CONTEXT

Road accidents have become a serious economic and social problem. According to a 2015 report by World Health Organizations, every year 1.3 million lives are lost and 50 million suffer from serious injuries on the roads across the world. The major brunt is borne by low and middle-income countries. It is predicted that without appropriate countermeasures, this problem will become the third leading cause of death in the world by 2020. Considering the severity of the problem, the United Nations is observing the decade of 2011 to 2020 as the ‘Decade of Action for Road Safety', with the objective of achieving zero accident rate by 2020. All its member countries, including India, have set out ambitious plans and policies to achieve the desired objective. India registers a high rate of road accident fatalities and injuries every year. Kerala, the southern state of the Indian union, which accounts for only 2 percent of the geographical area and 4 percent of the population of the nation, registers around 7 to 9 percent of road accidents in the country. Kerala, commonly known for its paradoxical development pattern, high human development with low economic growth, labeled “Kerala model of development”, faces serious repercussions because of the involvement of people from the most productive age group in road accidents. Against this background, this paper attempts to analyze the road accidents of the state in the national context, based on data gathered from the annual reports of Ministry of Road Transport and Highways on “Road Accidents in India”.