Road Safety and Youth in India: A Secondary Data Analysis of Trends, Severity and Policy Implications, 2015–2025

Sowmya K

Road Safety and Youth in India: A Secondary Data Analysis of Trends, Severity and Policy Implications, 2015–2025

Author(s)	Dr. Sowmya K
Country	India
Abstract	Road traffic crashes remain a major public-health, social and economic problem in India, with young and economically productive age groups bearing a disproportionate share of fatalities. Objective: This study analyses trends in road accidents, fatalities and injuries in India during 2015–2025, with particular emphasis on the vulnerability of youth and young adults, and derives policy implications for youth-focused road-safety interventions. Methods: The study adopts a descriptive and analytical research design based exclusively on secondary quantitative data published by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), Government of India, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha replies, Press Information Bureau releases and peer-reviewed literature. Percentage analysis, year-on-year growth rate, compound annual growth rate (CAGR), trend analysis and accident-severity analysis (fatalities per 100 accidents) were used. Results: Road accidents declined from 5,05,770 in 2015 to 3,72,181 in 2020 following COVID-19-related mobility restrictions, before rising to 5,13,563 in 2025. Fatalities rose from 1,46,555 in 2015 to 1,83,382 in 2025, an increase of approximately 25 per cent, compared with an increase of only about 1.5 per cent in the number of accidents over the same period (CAGR: accidents ≈0.15% p.a.; fatalities ≈2.27% p.a.). Accident severity rose from 29.0 fatalities per 100 accidents in 2015 to 35.7 in 2025. Official MoRTH reports and parliamentary replies consistently show that road users aged 18–45 account for roughly two-thirds of all road fatalities (66.4% in 2023), and that 66% of deaths in 2025 involved persons aged 18–34. Over-speeding remained the dominant reported risk factor, associated with an estimated 1,17,000–1,20,000 fatalities annually in recent years. Conclusion: The evidence indicates that India's road-safety challenge is increasingly one of crash severity rather than crash frequency, and that this severity is concentrated among youth and working-age populations. The study argues that youth road safety should be approached as a public-health, human-capital and economic-development issue and not merely a traffic-management issue, and recommends an integrated response combining education, engineering, enforcement and emergency care (the 4E framework), building on recent government initiatives such as the cashless treatment and Rah-Veer Good Samaritan schemes.
Keywords	road safety; youth; road traffic accidents; fatalities; road traffic injuries; secondary data; India; human capital; accident severity; 2015–2025.
Field	Sociology > Economics
Published In	Volume 8, Issue 5, September-October 2026
Published On	2026-09-20

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Road Safety and Youth in India: A Secondary Data Analysis of Trends, Severity and Policy Implications, 2015–2025

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