India’s roads kill with a predictability that should shame a modern state. Day after day, lives are lost not in dramatic, singular catastrophes but in an unbroken sequence of collisions, rollovers and run-overs that barely register beyond a brief news alert. The true crisis is not only the scale of these deaths, but how thoroughly they have been normalised. When fatalities become routine, accountability dissolves. The numbers alone are staggering. Hundreds die on Indian roads every day, a toll that would trigger national mourning if it occurred through any other means of transport. Yet road deaths rarely provoke sustained outrage or policy urgency.

Unlike aviation disasters, which are followed by instant scrutiny and institutional action, road crashes are treated as unfortunate but expected side effects of mobility. This complacency has allowed a slow-moving disaster to entrench itself. On average, India records about 55 road accidents and nearly 20........

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