Chennai in Numbers

Road Deaths in Chennai: MoRTH Data for 2022 to 2024

Chennai recorded 542 road deaths in 2024. Most were two-wheeler users and pedestrians, and nearly all died on city roads rather than highways.

19 October 2026

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Updated 2026-10-29, 2:05 AM

Chennai road deaths: what the data shows

542 people died on Chennai’s roads in 2024, up from 503 in 2023 and 507 in 2022, according to the Union road transport ministry’s annual “Road Accidents in India” city tables. Nearly 55% of those killed in 2024 were on two-wheelers, and about a third were pedestrians.

The ministry (MoRTH) compiles these figures from police reports sent by each state, and it publishes a separate table for about 50 large cities. Chennai has stayed 10th among them on deaths for three years running while climbing into the top five on the number of crashes. Here is what the data shows, and what it leaves out.

Three years of Chennai crash figures

Year	Accidents	Killed	Injured	Rank on deaths (large cities)
2022	3,452	507	3,724	10
2023	3,653	503	3,958	10
2024	3,762	542	3,970	10

Sources: the 2023 city table (which carries 2022 for comparison) and the 2024 city table. Chennai ranked 5th on accidents in 2022, 4th in 2023 and 5th in 2024. It ranked 4th on injuries in all three years.

A simple ratio helps. In 2024 Chennai recorded roughly 14 deaths per 100 crashes (542 of 3,762). Coimbatore, with 1,176 crashes and 296 deaths, lost about 25 people per 100 crashes, largely because more of its crashes happen on fast highways. Chennai’s crashes are more frequent but, on average, less deadly.

How Chennai compares with other metros, 2024

City	Accidents	Killed
Delhi	5,657	1,551
Bengaluru	4,769	894
Hyderabad	3,785	301
Chennai	3,762	542
Mumbai	2,604	370
Kolkata	1,942	191

Bengaluru’s deaths fell slightly in 2024 while Chennai’s rose by 39. Hyderabad recorded almost as many crashes as Chennai but fewer than 60% of the deaths.

Who dies: two-wheelers and pedestrians

The 2024 road-user table breaks Chennai’s 542 deaths down by how the victim was travelling:

Two-wheeler riders and pillions: 297
Pedestrians: 186
Auto-rickshaw occupants: 23
Bus occupants: 13
Cyclists: 12
Car, taxi and van occupants: 11

So two-wheelers and walkers together account for 483 of 542 deaths, almost nine in ten. The 2023 table showed the same pattern: 281 two-wheeler deaths and 185 pedestrian deaths out of 503. Nationally, two-wheeler riders made up 46.2% of the 1,77,175 people killed in 2024 and pedestrians 20.6%, ETV Bharat reported. Chennai’s two-wheeler share is higher than the national figure, and its pedestrian share is markedly higher.

Year on year, the rise in deaths between 2023 and 2024 came mostly from two-wheelers (up 16, from 281 to 297), auto-rickshaws (up 13, from 10 to 23) and buses (up 10, from 3 to 13). Pedestrian deaths were almost flat at 185 and 186.

How the numbers are collected

MoRTH does not count crashes itself. Each state’s police send the ministry a standard return built from First Information Reports, and the ministry compiles these into the annual report and its city tables. Two consequences follow. First, a crash with no FIR, such as a minor scrape settled on the spot, never enters the data, so injuries are under-counted more than deaths. Second, a person who dies in hospital days later may be recorded only as injured if the record is not updated, which is why public-health researchers treat official death counts as a minimum.

The city tables also follow police jurisdiction. Crashes on stretches policed by the Tambaram or Avadi commissionerates may not appear under “Chennai”, even though residents think of those roads as part of the city.

Where and why

MoRTH’s 2023 road-classification table shows that 3,577 of Chennai’s 3,653 crashes, and 489 of 503 deaths, happened on roads other than national and state highways. In other words, the danger is on city arterials and neighbourhood streets, not just on the GST Road or the bypass.

On causes, the ministry’s 2024 violation table attributes 146 Chennai deaths to over-speeding and 3 to drunk driving, with the remaining 393 under “others”. The large “others” bucket means police reports often do not pin down a single cause, so treat the speeding figure as a floor.

The national tables do not name individual junctions. Junction-level data is held by Greater Chennai Traffic Police and is not part of the MoRTH release, so any list of “deadliest junctions” you see comes from police briefings or news reports rather than this dataset.

The Tamil Nadu picture

Tamil Nadu recorded 71,387 road accidents and 18,505 deaths in 2025, the highest number of crashes in the country for a fourth year, according to figures given in Parliament and reported by IANS. Chennai accounts for only about 3% of the state’s road deaths, but its share of crashes is higher because dense traffic produces many lower-speed collisions.

Quick answers

How many people died in road accidents in Chennai in 2024?

542, according to MoRTH’s Road Accidents in India 2024 city table, with 3,762 crashes and 3,970 injured.

Are Chennai road deaths rising?

Slightly. Deaths were 507 in 2022, 503 in 2023 and 542 in 2024, while crashes rose each year.

Who is most at risk?

Two-wheeler users (297 deaths in 2024) and pedestrians (186). Helmets for rider and pillion are compulsory.

Is there 2025 data for Chennai?

Not yet in MoRTH’s city tables. Only statewide 2025 totals have been given in Parliament.

Information checked against official sources on 18 October 2026. Fees, dates and rules can change; confirm on the linked official pages before acting.