India's roads killed 1,77,175 people in 2024
That's one death every three minutes. Road deaths are twelve times what they were in 1970, and crashes have become deadlier even as their number has stayed flat.
In 1970 Indian police recorded 14,500 road deaths. In 2024 they recorded 1,77,175: about 484 a day, or one every three minutes. Part of the rise is population growth, but not most of it. Deaths per lakh people went from 2.7 to 12.6 over the same period. The biggest dip in the series came in 2020, when the lockdown kept people at home.
Switch to deaths per 100 crashes to see something stranger. India had 4,99,628 road accidents in 2010 and 4,87,707 in 2024, almost the same number. But deaths rose from 1,34,513 to 1,77,175, because every 100 crashes killed about 27 people in 2010 and 36 in 2024. The report doesn’t break down why. Part of it may be that minor crashes are less likely to be reported to police than fatal ones.
The By state view shows how different the states are. Tamil Nadu has the highest death rate of any state or UT (23.9 per lakh people), and Uttar Pradesh has the most deaths (24,118). Kerala logged 48,834 crashes, the third most, but only 3,880 deaths, about 8 per 100 crashes. In Bihar it was 81 per 100, and in Mizoram 93. Gaps that wide probably reflect how thoroughly each state’s police record non-fatal crashes, so death rates compare states better than crash counts do.
Who dies answers the question of who is getting killed. In 2024, 81,780 of the dead (46%) were on two-wheelers and 36,526 (21%) were pedestrians. People in cars, buses and trucks together were about a fifth.