Tamil Nadu tops road accidents, Uttar Pradesh remains deadliest State

Tamil Nadu continued to report the highest number of road accidents in the country in 2025, while Uttar Pradesh remained the deadliest State in terms of road accident fatalities, highlighting the contrasting road safety challenges faced by the two States, according to data tabled in the Lok Sabha by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.

Tamil Nadu recorded 71,387 road accidents and 18,505 fatalities in 2025, compared with 49,671 accidents and 27,550 fatalities in Uttar Pradesh. While Tamil Nadu witnessed nearly 22,000 more accidents than Uttar Pradesh, the latter reported over 9,000 more deaths, indicating that crashes in Uttar Pradesh are far more likely to turn fatal.

The data also show that the gap between accidents and fatalities is much wider in Tamil Nadu than in Uttar Pradesh. In 2025, Tamil Nadu recorded 3.86 accidents for every road fatality, compared with 1.80 accidents per fatality in Uttar Pradesh.

Bal Malkit Singh, Advisor and former President of the All India Motor Transport Congress, said the figures reflect two distinct road safety challenges. Tamil Nadu’s high accident volume coupled with a lower fatality ratio suggests relatively better road infrastructure, trauma care and emergency response, even though behavioural issues continue to result in a large number of crashes.

Uttar Pradesh, on the other hand, appears to face a higher severity of crashes, which could indicate high-speed highway collisions, inadequate road engineering and gaps in emergency medical response.

“Tamil Nadu’s data point to a high-volume, relatively low-impact crash environment. With 3.86 accidents for every fatality, a larger proportion of reported crashes are survivable. This suggests that while driving behaviour and traffic density contribute to frequent accidents, the State’s road infrastructure, median protection, lighting and post-crash emergency response are comparatively better at preventing those crashes from turning fatal,” Singh said.

Tamil Nadu’s priority should be to reduce the sheer volume of crashes through better traffic management, stricter enforcement against speeding and lane indiscipline, and sustained behavioural change campaigns. Uttar Pradesh needs to strengthen highway engineering, improve enforcement on high-speed corridors and significantly upgrade trauma care and emergency medical response to improve survival during the “golden hour,” he said.

A researcher who works on road safety attributed Tamil Nadu’s high accident numbers largely to driving behaviour and the sheer volume of vehicles on its roads. He said comprehensive reporting of all crashes, including those involving minor injuries, is essential for understanding local conditions and planning targeted interventions. Better crash reporting in Tamil Nadu, he added, has enabled authorities to undertake more evidence-based road safety measures.

Nationally, road accidents increased from 4.61 lakh in 2022 to 5.14 lakh in 2025, an increase of 52,897 accidents or 11.5 per cent. Road accident fatalities rose from 1.68 lakh to 1.83 lakh, an increase of 14,632 deaths or 8.7 per cent, indicating that road safety continues to be a major public policy challenge.

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