Despite the largest road network, India records the highest road fatalities. Examine the role of the compensation regime under the MV Act in road-safety governance.

MoRTH's Road Accidents in India 2024 records 4,87,707 crashes and 1,77,175 deaths — nearly 20 every hour — on the world's largest road network of about 6.7 million km [1]. The Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 therefore carries a strong post-crash payment arm, but a far weaker prevention arm.

Architecture of the compensation regime

• State governments constitute Motor Accidents Claims Tribunals under Section 165, routing claims through a statutory forum rather than ordinary civil suits [2].
• Two doors exist: no-fault liability (S.164) gives a fixed sum without proving negligence, while S.166 permits a fault-based claim sized to the family's actual loss of support [2].
• The MV (Amendment) Act, 2019 raised hit-and-run minimums to Rs 2 lakh for death and Rs 50,000 for grievous hurt, defined the golden hour, and created a Motor Vehicle Accident Fund extending compulsory cover to all road users [3]; the scheme was notified on 25 February 2022, superseding the Solatium Scheme, 1989 [4].

What it contributes to safety governance

• It transfers a loss worth about 3.14% of GDP from dependants to insurers and the Budget [1].
• PM-RAHAT, launched 13 February 2026, reimburses hospitals directly — up to Rs 1.5 lakh per victim for seven days on any road, financed from the Accident Fund and linked to the 112 helpline — so survival, not merely payment, enters the chain [5].
• Tribunal findings of negligence generate an official record of unsafe drivers, owners and black spots.

Why compensation cannot substitute for prevention

• Third-party insurance makes the insurer, not the negligent owner, bear the award, diluting deterrence.
• MoRTH's own causes — over-speeding (about 70% of deaths), weak enforcement, poor road upkeep and thin trauma care — lie beyond a tribunal's reach [1].
• PRS flagged overlap between the Solatium Fund and the new Fund, and the risk of owners paying both a cess and premiums [6].
• Litigation delay nudges poor claimants towards the quicker but smaller no-fault sum.

Compensation is remedial; fatalities fall only when engineering, enforcement, education and emergency care improve together. Pairing time-bound MACT awards and cashless golden-hour care with data-driven black-spot rectification would convert the Act's payment strength into genuine safety outcomes, advancing SDG 3.6's target of halving road deaths.