How Come The Number Of Road Accidents In Delhi In 2020 A Positive Piece of News?

How can a thing as morbid as a road accident ever carry a positive undertone? In fact, is it even right right to associate the term positive with a thing as harming as a road accidents? What doesn’t convey all that much is a random statement that doesn’t really aim at anything particular. But a statement of fact, carrying numbers when compared to different periods of time could well reveal something useful. Take the comparison of road accidents in a certain period of time to another time period and what you may find in the end could be interesting data.

Speaking of data, it’s pertinent at this time to look at the number of road accidents in Delhi in 2020. The question now is- just what is it about the number of road accidents in Delhi in 2020 that cuts a positive figure, much to our surprise?

One of the most important pieces of news pertaining to the national capital is the sheer number of road accidents in Delhi in 2020. Breaking news updates, as on March 8, 2021 suggest that there wasn’t any overwhelming number that would cut a worrying figure in this regard.

In fact, it can be said in no uncertain terms that the number of road accidents in Delhi in 2020 decreased by a fairly significant number. Now even as 2020 was such a heartbreaking year not just for India but the wider world given the grimacing pandemic that led to countless fatalities, not everything in the national capital of India was exactly grief-ridden.

Road accidents, as we know it, are a giant killer in a country like India where urban centres such as Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Chennai being hard hit by accidents each year.

Though, for Delhi as such, 2020 brought about a respite of sorts. But just how was this possible?

In fact, data on this pressing matter was furnished by the police force. According to a Special Commission Police, Traffic, Delhi Police- Mr. Taj Hassan- there was a 26 percent drop in road accidents in Delhi in 2020.

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Now, let’s first understand the exact figure belonging to 2019. Just how many accidents took place in the city? To that count, one’s advised to know, there were no fewer than 5,610 accidents that took place in the national capital last year. Of these, there were only a little over 1,400 that were counted as the fatal ones, the exact number being 1433.

Now one arrives at the positive figure the moment one takes into consideration the 2020 numbers. Compared to 5,610 accidents in Delhi during 2019, there were only 4, 178 accidents that occurred the following year.

Do the math and one realizes there were as many as 1,432 fewer accidents that happened as of the last year. The biggest gain, in this regard, being an 18 percent decrease in deaths on the road.

Though, that’s not all; the non-injury accidents dropped by a significant number- by 65.4 percent. If that’s not a positive, then one wonders, what is?

Meanwhile, here’s what the Hindustan Times highlighted in what can be rightly called as a major indicator of positivity belonging to 2020:

Amid the challenging year, traffic police adapted to the new realities of life and tweaked enforcement strategies. Owing to the necessity of social distancing, prosecution, which requires face-to-face interaction with the traffic violators was suspended and electronic prosecution is happening through Violation on Camera App.