Disputes on the road can quickly escalate into harassment, intimidation and violence. Back-toback road rage cases in the city have renewed concerns over the safety of commuters, especially women riders and drivers. The threat is compounded by aggressive driving, stalking and unsafe infra. The city road will not feel safe till authorities wake up to stronger enforcement and move beyond offering empty words of advice to ordinary drivers, writes City Team.
Shivani Chauhan, aka Sia, was chased and hit by a car on September 13, 2026, in Gurugram. Three men at a construction site died after being hit by a car, and one was left critically injured in Gurugram. A 73-year-old motorist was arrested after his vehicle allegedly hit a biker on Africa Avenue Road in the R K Puram area.
These are just some of the many incidents of road rage in the capital that highlighted the problem of aggressive driving escalating into harassment, intimidation and physical danger. Three back-to-back road rage incidents in less than a week have once again raised concerns about the safety of commuters, especially women, on Delhi-NCR roads.
In the first incident, Sia, who was chased and hit by a car driven by Kalyan Bainsla, was captured on camera and widely shared on social media. Sia has alleged that the car occupants had been following her and asking her to stop before the collision. Bainsla, however, has disputed the allegation and described the incident as an accident. Police later added serious charges, including attempt to murder, stalking and an offence related to insulting a woman’s modesty.
In another incident where three men were killed, the car was allegedly driven by a 20-year-old student from Delhi University’s St Stephen’s College. He ploughed into the workers as they were installing a metal fence on Dwarka Motorway.
In the third incident, police said a blue-coloured car, allegedly driven by Venu Gopal, a Vasant Kunj resident, hit the motorcycle around 10 pm on Thursday while travelling from Bhikaji Cama Place towards R K Puram Metro Station in south Delhi. At that time, the 21-year-old Tanish Tokas, a Munirka village resident, was sitting on his parked motorcycle on the roadside.
Tokas fell from the motorcycle due to the impact. The car dragged the vehicle for some distance, although no injuries were reported. The cases have become more than road accident incidents. It has questioned the lack of safety, unruly behaviour of riders and cost of lives in the capital’s roads. Women bikers said that being followed closely, being forced to stop or being treated aggressively by other motorists can make even a routine journey frightening.
The heightened vulnerability
The Gurugram incident is not an isolated example. In July 2024, 30-year-old Simranjeet Kaur was killed on the Gokalpuri flyover in northeast Delhi after a dispute between her husband and another two-wheeler rider following a minor collision. The other rider opened fire from the flyover during the argument; the bullet struck Kaur, who was travelling with her husband and two sons, and she died on the spot.
The accused was identified through CCTV footage and arrested in early August 2024. On 25 July 2025, two men allegedly opened fire after a woman travelling with her husband and children objected to two scooter riders obstructing their way near Mohalla Nihariyan Chowk, Ajmeri Gate. According to the police, the woman questioned the riders, following which one of them allegedly abused the family and another fired a shot. The accused, two 19-year-olds, were later arrested, and a pistol was recovered.
The NCR region also witnessed incidents where road disputes have gone beyond arguments. In recent years, female commuters driving on major corridors like the Rajiv Chowk flyover in Gurugram have reported being harassed, filmed without consent and threatened after traffic disputes. In multiple cases, police have filed charges under provisions for rash driving, sexual harassment, insulting modesty, mischief and criminal intimidation.
These cases show how quickly ordinary traffic disagreements can become dangerous. For women, the fear can be greater when an argument involves a group of men, a larger vehicle or an isolated stretch of road. The issue is therefore not only about traffic discipline but also about creating an environment where women can travel without fear of being chased, threatened or harassed.
The Sia case has also renewed calls for quicker police response, better surveillance and stricter action against dangerous driving. It underlines a basic point: roads should be shared spaces where disagreements are settled without threats or violence. Ensuring that principle is followed is essential for making Delhi-NCR safer for women and for every other road user.
Types and factors driving the fear
The cases documented reveal distinct patterns in how road disputes escalate. Disputes over giving way or traffic obstructions represent one category. Minor collisions or vehicle brushing, as seen in the Simranjeet Kaur and Sia cases, form another. Honking or noise complaints, exemplified by the Ajmeri Gate firing, and perceived disrespect or “teaching a lesson”, which characterises flyover assaults and many e-rickshaw versus car cases, complete the picture.
By weapon or method, the violence takes different forms. Physical assault leading to death represents one pattern. Use of firearms, as in the Simranjeet Kaur and Ajmeri Gate incidents, forms another. Deliberate ramming or use of a vehicle as a weapon, as alleged in the Sia case, and sexual harassment and intimidation as part of road rage, as documented in expressway harassment incidents, complete the typology.
Delhi-NCR’s road-rage problem cannot be understood without examining the structural conditions that enable it. The city has experienced rapid motorisation and high vehicle density, with mixed traffic on roads not designed for such loads. Specific corridors like Golf Course Road, Rajiv Chowk flyover and the Delhi–Gurugram expressway are known high-speed, high-conflict stretches where aggressive driving is common. Enforcement gaps compound the problem.
Weak enforcement of rash driving, dangerous overtaking and lane discipline until an incident turns fatal, and low probability of being caught for non-fatal road rage, which normalises aggressive behaviour. Infrastructure for vulnerable users is also inadequate—lack of protected lanes for cyclists and two-wheelers means women riders are often forced into the same high-speed lanes as cars and trucks, while poor lighting, broken dividers and blind spots on flyovers increase both accident risk and vulnerability to harassment.
Reports on women two-wheeler riders find that bad road conditions are their biggest worry, with over 70% saying larger vehicles disregard them by cutting in, crowding and overtaking without leaving room. This infrastructure deficit compounds the danger when road disputes escalate.
Unequal roads for women
Delhi leads Indian metro cities in road-accident fatalities with 1,658 deaths in over 2,000 negligence-related road accident cases, the highest among 19 metropolitan cities, according to National Crime Records Bureau data. Of these, a vast majority were hit-and-run incidents. Nationally, negligent driving kills hundreds of people per day on India’s roads; among million-plus cities, Delhi has consistently reported the highest number of hit-and-run deaths. National and regional safety surveys consistently show the city scoring poorly on urban safety indices due to public harassments against women. Studies surveying women across NCR public spaces report high rates of verbal harassment, stalking, or inappropriate contact over the course of a year.
For women two-wheeler riders specifically, bad road conditions and hostile driving behaviour remain major worries. While men remain the majority of road-death victims overall, the nature of risk for women includes sexual harassment and intimidation, which changes how they experience roads. Women as direct victims are represented by Simranjeet Kaur and Sia, cases where women riders were directly targeted in road-rage violence.
Survey data reinforces this picture, showing that many urban women feel unsafe in transit due to high exposure to street-level harassment. Female motorcyclists in NCR have argued that more women need to ride to make female riders a normal presence on roads, but this requires addressing the structural conditions that make riding dangerous for women.
Professional drivers represent a particularly vulnerable category in road-rage violence. They face high exposure, spending many hours on the road, often in peak congestion, and they are visible targets who may be seen as representatives of their public transport or logistics services.
Case examples illustrate this vulnerability, such as incidents where DTC bus drivers and commercial tempo drivers have been killed in arguments on duty, leaving their families without income and triggering protests demanding better police protection.
The economic consequences are severe: in these cases, the victims were often sole breadwinners, meaning road rage has immediate household-level economic consequences beyond the loss of life. Unions have demanded better security in buses and depots and legal support in road-rage cases. This adds a class and livelihood dimension to the story—road rage is not just about individual anger but about power asymmetries between different categories of road users.
Beyond safety measures
Several of these cases gained traction because of videos shared on social media. It pressurises the police to act quickly and upgrade charges. Dashcams, helmet cams and phone recordings serve as evidence for victims, especially women riders who may otherwise not be believed.
Victim re-traumatisation occurs through repeated viewing and sharing of assault videos. Vigilante justice impulses can become violent. Public narratives form before investigations are complete.
But beyond the “avoid confrontation, maintain distance, call authorities” advice, riders and experts recommend other strategies. For riders, basic precautions include avoiding confrontation with aggressive drivers, not stopping in isolated areas, using helmet or phone cameras to document incidents, sharing live locations when riding at night, and reporting vehicle numbers to police or traffic authorities.
Women riders often prefer main roads, avoid certain stretches after dark and travel in groups where possible, sometimes planning routes and timings around safety concerns. But individual vigilance cannot replace systemic safeguards. Faster response to women’s complaints, gender-sensitive traffic policing and clear CCTV signage on key corridors could improve accountability.
Globally, jurisdictions address road rage through measures such as specific offences, licence suspensions, anger-management programmes and tougher penalties for repeat offenders. India has no separate road-rage offence, with cases typically prosecuted under provisions covering rash driving, assault or attempted murder. The debate remains whether new laws are needed or stronger enforcement of existing ones would suffice. Ultimately, road rage is not merely a traffic problem but a public-safety concern.
The way forward
Activists, riders’ groups and police have pointed to several concrete measures that could reduce road-rage violence. These include dedicated fast-track courts for road-rage killings, stricter penalties and licence cancellation for repeat rash-driving offenders, and mandatory CCTV on major flyovers and motorways with clear signage.
The other is an institutional reform which requires gender-sensitivity training for traffic police and faster response protocols for women riders’ complaints. Better coordination among cops for incidents on inter-state corridors is also a must. Infrastructure investment is crucial—protected lanes for cyclists and two-wheelers, improved lighting, dividers and visibility on flyovers and high-conflict stretches.
Public awareness campaigns should specifically address honking, tailgating and “teaching a lesson” behaviour as criminal, not normal, alongside education programmes in driving schools on conflict de-escalation and road etiquette.
Given Delhi’s position at the top of road death and crime charts, road-rage prevention is not just a traffic issue but a public-safety and public-health priority. Ensuring that roads are shared spaces where disagreements are settled without threats or violence is essential for making Delhi-NCR safer for women and for every other road user.
The Delhi government had in 2018 told the Delhi High Court that it was set to move a proposal seeking to suspend the driving licence of persons involved in incidents of road rage for at least three months.
The government had made the submissions in January 2018 during the hearing of a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking directions to authorities to take preventive steps so drivers do not resort to “violent behaviour on roads”.
The PIL, filed by final-year Delhi University law student Anubhav Gupta, had alleged that wrongdoers who resort to violent behaviour on roads cannot be brought to book easily due to multiple lacunae in law.
However, in May 2025, the high court had denied anticipatory bail to a practising advocate accused of violently assaulting a software engineer in broad daylight, saying that “road rage is not merely road rage but leads to wider ramifications, ranging from physical injury to psychological damage”.
Gurugram biker case
Sia was chased and hit by a car driven by Kalyan Bainsla. The incident was captured on camera and widely shared on social media. Sia has alleged that the car occupants were following her and asked her to stop before hitting her bike. The police, however, acted only after the video went viral.
Some measures
Activists, riders’ groups and police have pointed to several concrete measures that could reduce road-rage incidents. These include dedicated fast-track courts for road-rage killings, stricter penalties and licence cancellation for repeat rash-driving offenders, and mandatory CCTV on major flyovers and motorways with clear signage.