MUMBAI: Circa 2025 saw the highest number of road accidents in Maharashtra in the last five years while the 32-hour ordeal of motorists on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway after a tanker of propylene gas overturned happened barely a week ago. In the aftermath of this, the state government saw fit to address the grave issue of road safety by organising a ‘Fun Run’, a fact that faced criticism from transport experts.
On Sunday morning, the transport department organised two separate events: a Road Safety Bike Rally from Ghatkopar Pumping Station till the Wadala truck terminal, and a 5-km Road Safety Run (‘Fun Run’) was for 5 km from Ghatkopar (E) along the Eastern Express Highway. The department said these were to promote ‘road safety’ and traffic rules among other things. Actress Urmila Matondkar, who was present for this Road Safety Awareness Campaign 2026, appealed to people to follow road safety rules. Around 600 runners participated in the initiative.
According to provisional data from the state transport department, Maharashtra has seen a rise in road accidents for the sixth straight year, although the silver lining is that fatalities dipped marginally in 2025. The state recorded 36,450 road accidents in 2025, sustaining the upward trend despite enforcement on the road and highways with the latest interceptor vehicles.
After witnessing a dip in accidents in 2020, when the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, numbers have steadily increased every year thereafter.
Mumbai witnessed one of its worst traffic congestions on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway on February 3 when a tanker carrying flammable gas overturned in the Khandala Ghat section. Transport experts are of the view that the government, instead of focusing on larger issues such as finding ways to prevent such an incident in the future, is focusing on such events as a ‘Fun Run’ for its road safety campaign.
“The government should first set up a committee to come out with the black spots on all highways, frame measures in case of similar accidents in the future and implement these and other steps within a definite time frame,” said AV Shenoy, member, Mumbai Mobility Forum. “People getting stuck for such long hours need thorough solutions to avoid a recurrence. Such events (Fun Run and Bike Rally) are nothing but ways to divert attention from the real deficiency.”
When questioned on this, transport commissioner Vivek Bhimanwar told Hindustan Times that the committee on road safety met regularly at the district level and was doing everything possible to keep a check on road accidents. “Road safety is the primary responsibility of all of us,” he said. “Let us ensure an accident-free Mumbai through the safe use of motor vehicles.”
The state government claims that its target is to reduce road accidents by 50 per cent by 2030. However, retired RTO officers pointed out another factor: that while the Motor Vehicle Rules prescribed a training syllabus for all drivers, it was mandatory only for commercial vehicle drivers. “Despite two-wheelers and four-wheelers accounting for nearly 70 percent of accidents and vehicular population, the training is insufficient,” said an officer.