While buoyancy in vehicle sales in India may be heartening for the industry and economy, it is also leading to a rise in road accident fatalities in the country. automobile manufacturers in india has the dubious distinction of being the second highest in the world after China in annual road accident fatalities. The number of annual road accident fatalities in India crossed the 80,000 mark in 1999 — a rising trend since 1990 when the number was 54,000 as per the department of road transport and highways data. In 2002, the number of road accident fatalities per 10,000 vehicles was the highest in China (17.10) followed by India (14.39). In most highincome countries such as Sweden, US, Australia, Japan and Germany it ranged between 1.08 and 2.58. While globally 90% of road crashes were attributed to “human error” by the World Health Organisation’s “World report on road traffic injury prevention”, in India “driver fault” was to blame for 83.5% of accidents, followed by passenger/pedestrian fault (4.7%), mechanical defect in vehicles (3%) and “other factors” (6.8%) such as cattle, fallen trees, non-functional signals and absence of reflectors. These were some details highlighted in a study published by Pune-based Central Institute of Road Transport’s (CIRT) latest edition of the Indian Journal of Transport Management. automobile supplies Society of Indian automobiles manufacturers (Siam) said sale of passenger cars in India rose by 69.23% between 2001-2005 — from 5.67 lakh in 2000-01 to 8.19 lakh in 2004-05. Siam statistics state sale of two wheelers rose by 58% during the same period, with domestic sales of two wheelers rising from 3.6 million in 2000-01 to 6.2 million in 2004-05. Based on the WHO report, the study by Alok Rawat, principal secretary with the Sikkim government notes the social cost of road accidents in the country was pegged at Rs 55,000 crore in 1999-2000, constituting 3% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for that year. Although road accidents have been traditionally viewed as random events “that happen to others”, according to Rawat, the new paradigm shift now views road crashes as “preventable and predictable.” This has been demonstrated in high income countries, says Rawat, where an established set of interventions through legislations and technology have led to “significant reductions in the incidence and impact of road traffic injuries.”