Why overspeeding is India’s most ‘privileged’ crime

In less than three weeks, three cities have produced three variations of the same headline: a young man at the wheel of a powerful car, ordinary people in his path, and a legal process that becomes complicated inversely proportional to your spending capacity.

On February 23 in Hosur, Tamil Nadu, Assistant Inspector of Labour P. Sivamoorthy, 57, was killed after S. Adhitya, 20, allegedly drove his car into him following a parking dispute outside his home. Three other members of Sivamoorthy’s family were injured. The accused is a college student. His father, Srinivasan, is a DMK district committee member and former Hosur Municipality councillor.

On February 8 in Kanpur, a Lamborghini allegedly driven by Shivam Mishra, son of a tobacco businessman K.K. Mishra, ploughed into pedestrians and vehicles, injuring six people. An FIR was initially registered against an ‘unidentified person.’ No immediate detention took place, and a few days later, a permanent driver submitted an affidavit claiming responsibility. One injured man reportedly accepted compensation and indicated he wanted no further legal action. Police have said their investigation points to Shivam Mishra as the driver, with technical examination pending.

This is not an anomaly. In early February, a rashly driven SUV in Delhi’s Dwarka area mowed down Sahil Dhaneshra, 23. Early February, a speeding SUV driven by a 14-year-old in Lucknow’s Gomti Nagar ran amok, crashing into police barricades.

The list is long and seems unending. Change the city name, or the month, or the week, and the story maintains a similar outline: young drivers, powerful vehicles, ordinary victims.

The Pune Porsche case of May 19, 2024, remains one of the most notorious ones for multiple reasons. A 17-year-old allegedly driving under the influence killed two people while joyriding. What followed the tragedy was not just prosecution, but allegations of blood sample swapping, conspiracy to shield the accused, and extended bail litigation. The Maharashtra government described the matter as revealing a “disturbing pattern of criminal conduct” involving influence, money and power. Nearly two years later, proceedings continue before the Supreme Court.

The scale of the problem

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways’ Road Accidents in India 2023 report lays out what the news articles on individual incidents only infer.

In 2021, India recorded 4,12,432 road accidents and 1,53,972 deaths. In 2022, those numbers rose to 4,61,312 accidents and 1,68,491 fatalities. In 2023, they climbed again, 4,80,583 accidents and 1,72,890 deaths. The lull seen in the data during the pandemic was no more, and the upward curve looks consistent. On average, 474 people die on Indian roads every day.

The pattern of who is dying is just as startling. In 2023, 66.4 percent of those killed were between 18 and 45 years old. Expand that age range to 18-60, and the share rises to 83.4 percent. Among drivers who died, 96.4 percent were male, and nearly three-quarters of them fell within that same 18 to 45 age bracket.

The leading cause recorded in the MoHRT report was over-speeding. It accounted for 68.4 percent of all accidents and 68.1 percent of fatalities. Drunken driving contributed 1.9 percent of accidents and 2.1 percent of deaths. Driving on the wrong side was linked to 5.3 percent of accidents and 5.5 percent of fatalities. This disparity isn’t marginal. Over-speeding alone dwarfs every other recorded cause in the report.

Geography also deepens the imbalance. National Highways make up just 2.1 percent of India’s road network, but account for 36.5 percent of fatalities. Rural areas account for 68.5 percent of deaths but also have a larger share of the road network. The report clearly shows that the two-wheeler riders are among the least protected road users, representing 44.8 percent of those killed. Rear-end collisions account for 20 percent, and hit-and-run incidents contribute 18 percent of fatalities.

However, the report doesn’t speculate on intent, entitlement, or influence. It records speed, age, location and outcome. But when nearly seven out of ten deaths are attributed to over-speeding, this fatal repetition is difficult to ignore.

The aftermath

The crash is often treated as an event, high octane and emotional, only if the incident catches the public eye. But for a family who has lost someone, it is just the beginning.

This week, in Dhardei village of Chhattisgarh’s Janjgir-Champa district, Krishna Patel and his wife Ramabai were found hanging from a tree in their courtyard. Their only son, Aditya, had died in a road accident in 2024. Police recovered a four-page note and a video in which the couple said they were acting “in full consciousness” and asked to bid farewell “with a cheerful heart.” In the same note, they requested that compensation related to their son’s death be handed over to relatives.

Nothing on the official account suggests confrontation or a renewed dispute in their case. What remains is the duration, the length of time since the accident, the life that never got back on track. While the proverbial wheels of justice turn at a glacial pace, grief becomes private. With no system in place for long-term mental and emotional support, the compensation, when it arrives, is considered a gold star for the system.

This is the part rarely discussed when road deaths are tallied in annual reports. The state records the crash, files the case, and moves forward through investigation and trial. But families don't move forward in stages. They wait for forensic reports, for chargesheets, for hearings that are adjourned. For the compensation which can never fill that void.

The legal system works, but at a pace and intensity that does not feel uniform. This contrast becomes starker when minors enter the picture.

In Dwarka this month, a 17-year-old allegedly driving without a licence with his adult sister in tow, crashed an SUV into 23-year-old Sahil Dhaneshra, killing him. The Juvenile Justice Board granted interim bail on the grounds of his Class X board examinations.

While in Shahdol, Madhya Pradesh, another 17-year-old was detained for waving a black flag during a protest the same week. He missed his Class XII board examination after spending nearly 40 hours in jail. He was released only after sunset restrictions delayed his discharge, and he arrived too late to sit the paper.

Both were minors, and both had examinations. But one received immediate accommodation, while the other did not. These are not identical cases, and the law will treat them differently on paper. One was accused in a fatal crash and got bail, while the other had waved a black flag for a CM, he didn’t.

But to families navigating the aftermath of road deaths, the larger pattern is harder to miss. Speeding may be recorded as the cause of nearly seven out of ten crashes. What follows the crash – bail, affidavit, adjournment, settlement, delay – these procedures determine whether the system feels responsive or apathetic.

For the parents and loved ones of countless young, the loss of their sons or daughters doesn’t culminate with the accident report. It lingers in pending claims and unanswered timelines. Justice, when it stretches beyond endurance, ceases to feel like justice at all.

The contrast

No justice system is perfect, but even though our system isn’t perfect, it must at the very least represent the interests of those who have lost everything. When a life is taken, the machinery of the state is expected to move with clarity and steadfastness – not with sympathy for power, but seriousness toward harm.

A similar case from the United States offers a contrasting picture.

In April 2024, in Hialeah, Florida, a 15-year-old named Maykoll Santiesteban drove an SUV at more than 80 mph in a 30 mph zone and crashed into a car carrying three women from the same family. Two died immediately. A third died months later from her injuries.

He was charged as an adult.

In February 2025, he pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide. His defence argued that he was a child, that adolescent brains are still developing. But the prosecutors opposed leniency, and the court heard from the families, not lord over them. The judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison, followed by 15 years of probation.

This is not about the punishment, which is important enough, but about the structure.

The prosecution did not treat recklessness as a lapse that could be administratively softened. The court also didn’t allow age to serve as a shield from the consequences. The case moved from charge to conviction within a defined judicial path. Responsibility was neither reassigned nor diluted once established.

Now let’s return to the scale of the crisis in our country.

India recorded 4,80,583 road accidents in 2023, resulting in 1,72,890 deaths. That is 474 deaths every single day. That is almost 20 people dying every hour, it’s one every three minutes. Nearly seven out of ten of those deaths were caused by overspeeding.

This cannot, in good conscience, be called an episodic tragedy. The lack of sustained enforcement of traffic laws results in structural violence on the roads.

When a country loses 1.7 lakh people in a year to preventable traffic behaviour, the question is no longer about individual error. It is about whether the state’s response matches the magnitude of the harm. Does the investigative process close swiftly around evidence?

A justice system signals its priorities not through speeches but through repetition and through pattern. Through the absence of ambiguity when privilege collides with accountability.

The real measure of justice is not severity. It is steadiness. When the law applies with equal weight, irrespective of surname, wealth, or proximity to power, it restores faith not just in verdicts, but in the idea that life itself carries equal value.

Until that steadiness becomes visible and consistent, the numbers will continue to rise, and each statistic will carry an indictment of our justice system, where the absence of money increasingly resembles ineligibility for justice.

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