Red means red. Even at 2 a.m.
Stop at the red light and stay on your own side of the road. An empty-looking junction is exactly where the fast, blind crashes happen.
The light turns green in ninety seconds. A crash lasts the rest of your life.
Here's the science
- What happensJumping red lights (and driving on the wrong side)
- HowEntering an intersection against the signal throws a vehicle into cross-traffic that has right of way, causing high-speed side-on collisions.
- SoRed-light jumping and wrong-side driving are recognised fatal traffic-rule violations in India.
1,462persons killed by jumping red lights (India, 2022)
Official count - government recordIN
“Drunken driving/consumption of alcohol & drugs, jumping of red light and use of mobile phones taken together accounted for 7.4 percent of total accidents and 8.3 per cent of total deaths.”
The exact counts are from the report's Table 3.1 (accidents by type of traffic-rule violation): jumping the red light killed 1,462 people and driving on the wrong side killed 9,094 in 2022. The prose sentence reports these violations combined.
Source: Road Accidents in India 2022 - Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH)(checked 2026-07-18)
And when we do it
When everyone trusts the signal, the junction just works - no game of chicken, no guessing who goes first.
You couldn't have known. Now you do.