Road Crashes on National Highway-48 in Maharashtra: Inspection and Interpretation

The present study inspects the crash records for the period of 5 years from 2016 to 2020 on a 265 km highway section of NH-48 passing through Maharashtra state in India. The crash records are inspected and interpreted under the various categories like type of collision, type of injury, violation of rules, type of lane, type of road curve, type of junction, and climatic condition. The inspection revealed that 36.43% (588) of crashes have resulted from Head-on-collision, 22.37% (361) from Rear-end-collision, 16.79% (271) in deaths, 46.34% (748) in grievous injury, 36.06% (582) in minor injury, 42.99% (694) from vehicle out of control, 26.70% (431) from overspending, 97.03% (1566) on 2-lanes, 94.55% (1526) on straight roads, 98.70% (1593) on T-junction, 62.33% (1006) in fine climate condition, and 11.214% (181) in cloudy climate condition. In addition to these, there are 25.65% (414) of crashes which are not identified or recorded under the type of collision. There are only 0.806% (13) crashes which resulted in no injury, which calls for serious attention to the road safety issues of this highway section. Overall, as per the interpretation of the results, it is concluded that these interpretations are useful in deciding and implementing the road safety policies on this highway section to reduce the severity levels of the road crashes.