Geographical analysis
Department of Geography & GIS
Department of Geography & GIS
Geographical analysis
Year: 2026, Volume: 15, Issue: 1, Pages: 1-11
Original Article
R Shiva Kumar1*
1Assistant Professor, The Rural College, Kanakapura, Bengaluru South District, Karnataka, India
*Corresponding Author
Email: [email protected]
Received Date:08 March 2026, Accepted Date:07 May 2026
This study presents a comprehensive macro-level epidemiological and spatial-temporal analysis of road traffic accidents in Karnataka for the calendar year 2023, contextualized within a five-year longitudinal framework (2019–2023) to evaluate regional traffic safety dynamics. Drawing on empirical data from the official registries of the Karnataka State Police and the State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB), the research evaluates a dataset of 43,440 discrete vehicular crashes, representing an acute 9.25% year-over-year escalation in traffic incidents that culminated in 12,321 fatalities and 52,547 non-fatal injuries. By stratifying these incidents across roadway classifications, vehicular typologies, kinematic collision mechanics, victim demographics, and behavioral infractions, the analysis reveals a concerning post-pandemic resurgence in crash metrics. The findings indicate that National and State Highways exhibit disproportionately high fatality rates relative to their linear mileage, with Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs)—predominantly motorized two-wheeler operators and pedestrians within the active 18–35 age cohort—bearing the primary mortality burden. Furthermore, the data isolates speeding, non-compliance with passive safety systems (helmets and seatbelts), and hazardous overtaking as the primary proximal drivers of fatal outcomes, exacerbated by distinct temporal high-frequency crash vectors linked to peak transit hours. Ultimately, this widening divergence between expanding road infrastructure and regional safety enforcement metrics underscores the critical need for a pivot toward predictive, evidence-based interventions. To mitigate this systemic public health crisis, the study concludes with targeted policy frameworks, advocating for automated speed-enforcement corridors, stricter legislative mandates for protective gear, geometric remediation of infrastructure blackspots, and optimized trauma-care distribution along high-speed corridors.
Keywords: Road accidents, Karnataka, Traffic fatalities, Over-speeding, Two-wheelers, Road safety policy, SCRB
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© 2026 Kumar. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Published By Bangalore University, Bengaluru, Karnataka
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