Trend summary
- Roads cause almost all transport deaths: 177,175 in 2024 and a provisional 183,382 in 2025.
- On the water, overcrowded passenger boats on rivers and lakes are the main danger; NCRB counted 10,580 boat-mishap deaths in 2001–15.
- Air crashes are rare, but the Air India Flight 171 crash at Ahmedabad in June 2025 killed 260 people.
Deaths risingRoad
177,175 road deaths in 2024; provisional 2025 count is 183,382, higher again.
Small boats deadliestMaritime
Boat mishaps killed 10,580 people in 2001–15, mostly on rivers and lakes, per NCRB data.
Rare but deadlyAviation
Eight civil air accidents killed 274 people in India in the first seven months of 2025.
How this page is built. Figures come from the official statistical releases linked above; where agencies publish provisional numbers we say so, because they are revised. Many Indian statistics are compiled state by state and published a year or two late (NCRB’s accident report for 2024 came out in 2026), so we say which year each figure covers. Large numbers are written in international form, with lakh (100,000) and crore (10 million) in brackets where Indian sources use them. Photos are public-domain or Creative Commons images credited in each caption; file photos are illustrative and are not from the events described unless the caption says so. This page tracks trends and is not personal safety, medical, legal or financial advice.