India’s road safety crisis has reached a scale that can no longer be dismissed as the cost of mobility. The country recorded 4.61 lakh road accidents in 2023, which claimed over 1.72 lakh lives, according to the ministry of road transport and highways. The most striking fact is that national highways, barely 2% of the network, account for 30–35% of all deaths. In 2023 alone, these corridors saw nearly a third of all crashes and more than a third of all fatalities. They are turning into highways of death, not highways of growth.
Two recent accidents in Rajasthan underline the fragility of the system. On 2 November 2025, a tempo traveller carrying pilgrims crashed into a stationary truck in Jodhpur, killing 15 people. A day later, 14 more were killed near Jaipur. These incidents occurred on upgraded corridors meant to showcase modern engineering. Instead, they exposed how uneven enforcement and weak design continue to claim lives.
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Road safety crisis runs deep
The growth of the highway network has not been matched by improvements in safety systems. Over-speeding causes 66.5% of crashes and 72.3% of fatalities, making it the single biggest killer. Driver fatigue, amplified by long stretches without rest areas, adds to the risks. Poor engineering remains widespread: blind curves, missing barriers, and inconsistent signage make highways unforgiving. Roadside encroachments, from dhabas to informal shops, obstruct visibility and turn merging lanes into danger points.
This engineering-behaviour mismatch is one reason why infrastructure expansion has not reduced fatalities. Trauma care access remains weak, especially in districts where ambulances and emergency rooms are thinly spread. Helmet and seatbelt compliance continues to be poor in rural and peri-urban areas. Safety audits and black spot rectification remain slow, despite repeated instructions from the Centre.
A striking omission in the national conversation is the fate of pedestrians, two-wheeler riders, and cyclists. They form the bulk of casualties, yet their safety receives the least attention. Two-wheelers alone account for more than a third of fatalities. Many of the victims are delivery riders, factory workers, or informal labourers who ride without protective gear or navigate corridors with no footpaths or safe crossings. Highways cut through inhabited areas, forcing people to cross lanes meant for high-speed travel. If India wants meaningful reductions in deaths, vulnerable users have to become central to the policy framework, not an afterthought.
Why reforms have not delivered results
India has enacted several reforms—the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019, the Stockholm Declaration, and the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety — yet results remain modest. The Supreme Court’s 2025 ruling in Gyan Prakash vs Union of India directed the Centre to monitor safety continuously, remove illegal encroachments, and identify high-risk stretches. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has since accelerated work on signage, merging lanes, and black-spot rectification. But accident numbers suggest limited impact. Policy is not the problem; execution is.
A major institutional gap is the National Road Safety Board, mandated six years ago but still not constituted. Without it, technical standards, enforcement practices, engineering norms, and inter-agency coordination remain fragmented. The vacuum shows up in inconsistent state performance and limited accountability.
Driver licensing and training: The weakest link
India’s licensing regime is built on outdated practices. Tests are minimal, and many driving schools issue certificates with little instruction. The problem is more acute in the commercial segment. Long-haul truckers work punishing hours with no legally enforced rest periods. Fatigue, distraction, and poor training are predictable outcomes.
India lacks a modern framework for driver recertification or mandatory professional development programmes. Hours-of-service rules, common in countries with better safety records, are absent. Without repairing the licensing and training ecosystem, India will continue to pay a high human cost for mobility.
Enforcement gaps and absence of policing
Some states have shown what is possible. Maharashtra’s dedicated highway police force — over 2,000 personnel, 62 traffic aid posts, and 90 interceptor vehicles — has improved surveillance and enforcement. Real-time e-challans have reduced discretion and delays. But most states rely on regular police departments that are overstretched and poorly equipped. India still lacks a unified National Highway Safety Force, leaving enforcement uneven across the country.
Behavioural risks make this deficit more serious. Speeding, drunk driving, mobile-phone distraction, and non-use of helmets and seatbelts are widespread. Fog, rain, and poor lighting add further layers of risk on high-speed corridors.
The funding and capacity deficit
Safety reforms require predictable funding and trained personnel, but most states struggle with both. Dedicated road safety funds are small and inconsistently utilised. Modern enforcement demands capital—cameras, patrol vehicles, forensic tools, and data systems—but states rely on irregular budgetary allocations. The law allows a portion of collected fines to be diverted to safety efforts, yet implementation remains uneven.
Capacity is an even larger constraint. Few states have trained road safety engineers or full-time secretariats to plan and monitor interventions. Without specialised staff and stable financing, even well-designed policies fail to gain traction.
Road safety involves MoRTH, NHAI, state transport departments, police forces, and district-level committees. But coordination is poor. Experts note that NHAI representatives often skip state-level meetings, leaving black-spot plans and engineering fixes on paper. The collapse of District Road Safety Committees, which were chaired by MPs, exposed the lack of political engagement with safety. Some politicians even intervene to allow illegal road cuts for electoral reasons. Accountability remains diffuse and often unclear.
Public awareness and social norms lag
MoRTH’s data show that India cannot reduce deaths without tackling speeding. Yet the country still lacks National Speed Management Guidelines, and the 2018 speed-limit notification has not been updated. Automated enforcement—ANPR cameras, average-speed systems, and evidence-based penalties—offers a scalable solution but has not been deployed widely enough. Without a coherent national framework, speeding will continue to dominate accident statistics.
The hardest failures lie in behaviour. India’s road culture normalises risky overtaking, casual speeding, drunk driving, and the neglect of helmets and seatbelts. Public awareness campaigns are episodic, even though behavioural change requires persistence. Countries that cut fatalities invested years in school-level education, corporate fleet training, community outreach, and clear communication of rights under the Good Samaritan law. Social norms are a core part of safety policy, not a peripheral issue. Without changing them, engineering and enforcement reforms will achieve limited results.
What must change now
India needs a structural shift built on three pillars. First, constitute the National Road Safety Board without delay, giving it the authority to harmonise standards, coordinate agencies, and monitor compliance. Second, adopt a national speed management framework that sets evidence-based limits and relies heavily on automated, camera-based enforcement. Third, create joint review mechanisms linking NHAI, transport departments, and state governments to track audits, black-spot fixes, and enforcement data monthly.
Safety cannot be improved by infrastructure alone. It requires a mix of engineering upgrades, enforcement capacity, institutional reform, behavioural change, and political leadership.
India’s highways symbolise ambition and economic progress. Yet they also reveal the country’s weakest governance links. When 2% of the road network accounts for a third of all deaths, the system demands more than marginal adjustments.
If India wants its corridors of development to become corridors of safety, it will need urgency, coordination, and a long-term commitment to reform. Without decisive action, the country will continue to lose thousands of lives each year on roads built to accelerate growth.
Pradeep Mehta is Secretary General and Madhu Sudan Sharma, Senior Program Officer, CUTS International, a leading policy research and advocacy group.