Driving home at night after a wedding or family function: a highway safety plan for Indian families

Weddings, tilak ceremonies and pujas often end late, and the family then has to get home in the dark: a long day behind them, a heavy meal, sometimes a driver who has had a drink, and a vehicle full of elders and children. On the night of Sunday, 1 November 2026, a trailer and a Maruti Eeco van collided head-on near a petrol pump on the Hata-Pipraich road in Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh. The van was bringing people home from a relative’s tilak ceremony, and seven people died, as most reports say (six were reported at first). Earlier that same Sunday, at about 11 am, two people died when a fire engine caught fire after a collision with trailers on NH-48 near Rishabhdev in Udaipur. That one was in daylight, so it is not a night crash, but it is one more highway crash with trailers. No cause has been confirmed in either case, and we do not suggest one. This guide is for the drive home: what to decide before you leave, what the official numbers show, what the rules say about lights and parked vehicles, and what to do if the vehicle has to stop or a crash happens. Checked 2 November 2026.

In short

• Decide who drives before the function starts. The driver does not drink, has slept, and is not asked to do the whole run alone if it is long.
• If the night is long, do not drive through it. Leave earlier, stay over, or hand the wheel to a rested second driver.
• Every seat belt, every seat. The regulations require every occupant to wear a seat belt where one is fitted. In 2023, 16,025 people killed on Indian roads were not wearing one.
• Dip the high beam in good time, keep lamps clean, and never drive on parking lights.
• Slow down for small red dots. At night a trailer or truck at rest may be the least visible thing on the road.
• If you must stop, use a lay-by, switch on the hazard lights, put out the triangle 50 metres behind and keep everyone away from traffic. Call 1033 on a National Highway and 112 anywhere.

What the official numbers show

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) report Road Accidents in India 2023 counted 4,80,583 road accidents and 1,72,890 deaths. Counted by the time of day, the busiest period was between 6 pm and 9 pm, with 99,945 accidents, or 20.8 per cent of the total. Adding the four slots from 6 pm to 6 am, we get 2,02,194 accidents, about 42 per cent of all accidents (our own sum of the report’s table). Roads are far emptier after midnight, so these are shares of accidents and not a measure of risk per kilometre. The report’s time table counts accidents and not deaths, so we cannot say how many deaths occurred at night.

The same report shows why a highway at night is not like a city lane. National Highways carried 31.2 per cent of accidents but 36.5 per cent of deaths (63,112 deaths), though they are about 2.1 per cent of the road network. Collisions where a vehicle hit another from behind were the largest type, with 1,10,656 accidents and 36,804 deaths. Collisions with a parked vehicle made 13,810 accidents and 5,636 deaths. Trucks and lorries were the impacting vehicle in 33,997 deaths, which works out to about 19.7 per cent (our calculation), and 5,461 of the 21,496 car, taxi, van and light-vehicle occupants who died were hit by a truck or lorry. Drunken driving or drugs were recorded in 9,143 accidents and 3,674 deaths, and seat belts were not worn by 16,025 of those killed, 8,441 drivers and 7,584 passengers. The report has no separate category for tiredness or sleep, so no official count of fatigue crashes is available to us.

Before you leave the function

• Name the driver early, while everyone is still thinking clearly, and make it a person who will not drink. Under the Motor Vehicles Act the legal limit is 30 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood, and the driving regulations require the driver to be fit in body and mind. Do not accept a lift from anyone who has been drinking, however short the road. Say so, politely, and book a cab or wait.
• Count the hours. A driver who has been up since morning, driven to the venue and then waited through the ceremony is not fresh at midnight. If the journey home is long, stay over, or share the driving among people who are rested.
• Do not overfill the vehicle. Children on laps and elders without a seat belt are exactly the people a crash hurts most. The regulations ask that a child up to twelve years sit in an appropriate child restraint where one is provided.
• Look over the vehicle in daylight if you can: headlamps, tail lamps, brake lights, indicators, hazard lights and tyres. Wipe the lamps and the reflectors. Keep a torch, a reflective triangle and a charged phone in the vehicle.
• Tell someone your route and your expected arrival time, and ring when you reach home.

Tiredness is a stop signal

The Uttarakhand Traffic Police, on its public road-safety pages, says fatigue reduces reaction time, concentration and alertness, and that after every three to four hours of driving one should take a 15-minute break, with tea or coffee, cold water on the face or a short nap. It also advises 7 to 8 hours of sleep and says one can only delay tiredness, not stop it. It says fatigue-related crashes occur most often from 2 to 4 am, 6 to 7 am and 6 to 7 pm, but gives no source for that, so we treat it as an officer’s observation and not a statistic. We found no national advisory from MoRTH or NHAI giving a fixed break interval.

In plain terms: frequent yawning, heavy eyelids, drifting within the lane, missing a turn or not remembering the last few kilometres mean it is time to stop. Music, an open window and loud talk do not make real drowsiness safe. Passengers help by staying awake, speaking up early and, if the driver is nodding, asking to stop at the next safe place. Our guide to night driving has more on this, and night travel in shared tempos and on hill highways covers the last stretch home by shared vehicle.

Lights: use them properly

Regulation 31 of the Motor Vehicles (Driving) Regulations, 2017 says the driver shall use the specified lighting devices at nightfall, at night and at dawn, and when visibility is poor. Lamps must be kept in good working order and not be hidden by dirt or any object. A driver must not drive on parking lights only, must not use high beam inappropriately, for long, or on well-lit roads, and must dip it in good time for an oncoming vehicle or when driving close behind another. Fog lamps are for fog, dust, storm, rain or snow, and then only with dipped headlamps. Government told the Lok Sabha in August 2025, as reported, that it keeps no separate data on crashes caused by high-beam glare, so we cannot tell you how many crashes glare causes.

Slow vehicles and parked trailers

A big trailer at the roadside at night is easy to miss and hard to avoid at highway speed. The rules try to make it visible. Regulation 28 says that if a vehicle with more than two wheels breaks down, its hazard lights shall be switched on immediately and, on highways and major roads with fast speed, reflective warning triangles shall be placed 50 metres behind it, and before a bend if the vehicle stands near one. Regulation 22 says a vehicle shall not be parked on a main road, or a stretch where the notified speed limit is 50 km/h or more. The Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 (Rule 104, as we read it in an unofficial copy) require reflective tape on heavy goods vehicles and trailers made on or after 1 April 2009, white at the front and a contour marking at the rear and sides. And in December 2025 NHAI advised motorists to fit reflective tapes on their vehicles, as it announced fog-safety measures. Rules do not guarantee that every parked vehicle is marked, and we have no official figure for how many are not.

So the habit that protects you is yours: keep your speed so that you can stop within the distance you can see, keep a gap from the vehicle in front, do not overtake near bends or crests, and slow down early when you see hazard lights or a triangle.

If your vehicle has to stop at night

1. Do not stop on the carriageway if you can help it. Make for a lay-by, a petrol pump or a dhaba, not the shoulder of a fast road.
2. Switch on the hazard lights at once.
3. Place the reflective triangle 50 metres behind, and before a bend if there is one, walking on the side away from traffic.
4. Get everyone out on the side away from the road and stand well clear, behind a barrier if there is one, not between the vehicle and the traffic.
5. Call for help. On a National Highway, 1033 is NHAI’s 24×7 toll-free helpline for cranes, ambulances and obstacles on the road; it is described in a PIB release of 27 May 2026. Anywhere, 112 reaches the police, and 108 an ambulance in most states (see our emergency numbers guide).

If a crash happens: the first minute

Regulation 29 of the same rules says that after a major accident everyone involved should check themselves and the others for injury, call medical help and the police at once, move the vehicles to the side of the road if possible, and stay until the police arrive. Put on hazard lights and keep people off the carriageway. Do not move an injured person unless there is danger such as fire. Our guides on road accident first aid and what a witness can do safely at a road crash explain what to do while help comes.

A family box

• Agree the rule before the function: one named sober driver, no drink for the driver, a second driver or an overnight stay if the night is long.
• Seat belts for everyone, including the back seat. Check that every belt works before the ceremony, not at midnight.
• Keep a triangle, a torch and a charged phone in the boot. Save 112 and 1033.
• Tell the elders that asking the driver to stop for a break is not rude.
• Our emergency wallet card keeps the family’s numbers on one printable card.

What we could not confirm

• The causes of the Kushinagar and Udaipur crashes. Neither report we read says a parked vehicle was involved, and we do not link either to tiredness, drink or lights.
• Deaths by time of day. The MoRTH table we read counts accidents only. We did not open the 2024 annual report.
• An official count of crashes caused by tiredness, glare or unmarked parked vehicles. None of the sources we opened gives one.
• The official gazette text of the 2017 driving regulations and Rule 104. We read the regulations in a copy hosted by Kerala Police and Rule 104 in a legal database, and did not check later amendments, including the 2020 amendment to the driving regulations.
• Any official Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn video on night driving. We searched and found none we could open and check, so the videos below are from YouTube.

Do this at the next function

Name the driver, keep him or her sober and rested, buckle every seat, dip your lights, slow down for small red dots, and stay over if the night is long. For related reading, see our night driving plan and the emergency numbers guide.