Ranchi, Feb 9 (IANS): Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das on Saturday launched the road safety week and appealed to people to follow traffic rules.

"Road accident statistics are surprising. Youth is the largest casualty of road accidents," said the Chief Minister during flagging off Run for Safety, which is part of the road safety week celebrations, here on Saturday.

The data made available by the Ranchi Police indicates that road accidents claimed more lives than murders. The 2018 data says that 390 people, a majority of them youth, were killed in traffic accidents, while the reported number of people murdered stood at 200.

In 2018, a total number of 583 road accident cases were registered in Ranchi. "A majority of the road accident cases involved bike riders. Most of the deaths occured because the riders were not wearing helmets," says the police report.

There are about 10 to 15 accident cases in which both the bike and pillion riders were killed.