Chandigarh: Contrary to the road and rail safety claims, the National Crime Records Bureau’s report has exposed Haryana to have the fourth maximum death rate in these and other accidents.

Haryana (53.5) is placed after Ladakh(78.7), Puducherry (65.7), and Chhattisgarh (56.4) on this chart, followed by Maharashtra (53), Andaman and Nicobar Islands (51.8), and Madhya Pradesh (50.9) against a national average of 31.2.In 2022, the state had reported 16,041 accidental deaths — those attributed to road and railway accidents, natural calamities, unnatural causes, and unreported illness — against 14,830 reported in 2021.

In 2022, the NCRB counted 6,424 deaths in 11,875 Haryana accidents, which include fires. The state lost 5,228 lives in 10,654 road accidents deaths, more that the figures for neighbours Himachal Pradesh and Punjab. All the deaths reported from Himachal were in road accidents alone, on the national and state highways, while in Haryana, the pedestrians, two-wheeler riders, and cyclists had the maximum casualties and injuries. Of those on two-wheelers, 2,183 died and 3,420 were injured. Of the pedestrians, 1,163 died and 1,663 were injured.

In the state’s 1,167 railway accidents, humans were the biggest casualty. Also, 743 people drowned and another 520 consumed pesticides and insecticides, while 79 died of snakebite, 106 of inhaling poisonous gases, 17 of suffocation, 73 of drug abuse, and nine of overdose.