Hyderabad: Telangana has recorded the sharpest rise in road accidents among India’s major states in 2024, with crashes jumping from 22,903 to 25,986 a 13.5 per cent surge that is nearly nine times the national average of 1.5 per cent, according to data released by the Union ministry of road transport and highways.
Large states such as Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh all registered increases of under 5 per cent. Only a handful of northeastern states fared worse than Telangana.
The state also recorded 7,900 road accident fatalities in 2024, a 3.7 per cent rise and the highest growth rate among southern states. Over-speeding was the leading cause, driving more than 7,500 accidents and around 2,760 deaths.
Hit-and-run incidents have surged in parallel. Around 2,400 such cases were reported in 2024 alone, and over 2,500 people have been killed in hit-and-run accidents across the state between 2022 and 2024. Rear-end and side-impact collisions claimed nearly 2,000 lives across roughly 8,200 accidents during the year.
RTA officials attributed part of the spike to improved reporting. “Even minor road accidents are now being recorded by the police,” an official said, adding that district road safety committees had been set up to address engineering, enforcement, education and emergency response.
