Riding in a tractor-trolley or goods vehicle: why it is not allowed, what happened this week and how to get your family there safely

Every year, when a wedding, a mundan, a jagran or a mela comes round, somebody in the family says, “The trolley is free, we will all go together.” It feels harmless, it saves the cost of a bus, and in many villages it has been done for generations. It is also one of the most dangerous ways to travel on an Indian road. This week alone we recorded two tractor-trolley crashes in Uttar Pradesh with nine deaths between them. This page explains why the trolley is not made for people, what the law and the Centre have said, and what a family or an organiser can do instead. Checked 10 November 2026.

In short

• A trolley is built for crops and loads, not for people. It has no seats, no seat belts, no roof and no side protection that works in a crash. If it is hit from behind or the hitch breaks, everyone on it is thrown or crushed.
• The Centre has said the motor vehicle law does not allow tractors and their trolleys to carry people. The Road Transport Secretary wrote to state chief secretaries in October 2022 asking them to regulate it (as reported by Swarajya). Enforcement is in the hands of the states.
• Book a vehicle that is meant for passengers. Under section 66 of the Motor Vehicles Act, a vehicle used to carry passengers or goods for hire needs a permit.
• Nothing tall on a trolley near a wire. A rod, flag pole or DJ frame on a trolley that touches an 11 kV line has already killed three young men in Gorakhpur this season.
• After a crash, call 112 and 108 first. Do not move people who are trapped unless there is fire or the trolley is about to roll.

Recent crashes: two in the first nine days of November 2026 and one in October

These two are our own case studies. Reports differ on some details, and neither cause is officially confirmed.

• Sitapur, 6 November. At about 5 pm, a speeding truck rammed a tractor-trolley from behind near Himmatnagar village, in the Pisawan police station area. The trolley overturned. The people on it were villagers returning from a child’s mundan ceremony. Five women died and 17 others were hurt, including children. The Inspector General of Police, Lucknow Range, told ANI that over-speeding appeared to be the cause on first look and that passengers were being carried illegally in a commercial or agricultural vehicle. See the Sitapur case study.
• Chitrakoot, 9 November. At about 2.30 am, a tractor-trolley carrying about two dozen devotees on the way back from Deepdan overturned into a ditch on the Jhansi-Mirzapur highway. Four people died, including a six-year-old, and about 12 were hurt. The District Magistrate said the hook joining the tractor and the trolley failed. Why it failed has not been reported. See the Chitrakoot case study.
• Gorakhpur, 21 October. A metal rod on a trolley carrying a Durga idol and devotees touched an 11 kV overhead line near Gulriha. Three young men died and nine or ten were burnt. Whether the line was live is disputed in the reports. See the Gorakhpur case study and our page on electric wires near your house, balcony or terrace.

The pattern is not that the tractor driver was always at fault. It is that when something goes wrong, a trolley full of people has nothing to protect them. A rear-end hit, a broken hitch and a live wire are three different causes with the same result.

What the law and the Centre have said

• The Centre’s letter, October 2022. Swarajya reported on 10 October 2022 that the Road Transport Secretary wrote to all state chief secretaries. The report says the motor vehicle law does not allow tractors or the trolleys attached to them to carry people, and asked states to regulate it and enforce the rules. The same report quotes government data of 11,696 tractor travellers killed in crashes in 2019 to 2021. It also says the rule is widely broken and that experts point to toppling on uneven ground.
• Permits. Section 66 of the Motor Vehicles Act says no owner may use a motor vehicle as a transport vehicle in a public place without a permit. We read the section on a third-party legal site; check the wording on India Code. It exempts some vehicles, such as ambulances, fire engines and goods vehicles up to 3,000 kg gross weight. The Centre’s reading, quoted above, is that tractors and their trolleys are not meant to carry people.
• Local enforcement. In May 2025, Patrika reported a meeting at Suhela police station in Baloda Bazar, Chhattisgarh, where officials decided to ban passengers in pickups, tractors, Mazda, 407 and Chota Hathi vehicles, even for weddings and similar family events, and said vehicles would now be impounded. In October 2024 the Uttar Pradesh government was reported to be enforcing its ban on passengers in tractor-trolleys, with awareness campaigns in villages.

We did not find a single national penalty figure for this offence, so we do not quote one. Penalties and the way they are enforced differ by state.

If you are planning a family trip or a procession

• Hire a bus, a mini-bus or a taxi that carries passengers legally, and ask to see the permit and the driver’s licence. It costs more than a trolley. It costs far less than a hospital stay or a funeral.
• Divide the cost. A mundan or a jagran for fifty people can usually pay for two small vehicles. Ask the gram panchayat or the temple committee whether it can arrange transport for pilgrim groups.
• Do not travel at night or at dawn if you can avoid it. The Chitrakoot crash was at 2.30 am. Our pages on night travel in shared tempos and on hill highways and night village processions and children on the road explain why.
• Keep children off the trolley altogether. A six-year-old died in Chitrakoot and children were among the injured in Sitapur.
• If an idol, a flag or a DJ is on a trolley, keep everything below the height of the lowest wire on your route, and send someone ahead to check it. See our immersion safety plan.

If you see a crash

• Call 112 for police, fire and ambulance, and 108 for an ambulance. (112 is the single emergency number under the ERSS system, PIB.) Say the road, the nearest village or landmark and that a trolley has overturned.
• Switch off the tractor engine if it is still running and you can reach the key safely. Keep people away from the trolley’s edge, because it may shift.
• Do not lift or drag injured people unless there is fire or an immediate risk of the trolley rolling. Wait for trained help where you can. For what to do while the ambulance is on its way, read our page on road accident first aid.
• Put a bush, a branch or a lit torch well behind the vehicle to warn other drivers, and stand clear of the road.

What not to do

• Do not sit on the mudguard, the drawbar or the rim of the trolley, and do not stand.
• Do not tow a second trolley behind the first for people.
• Do not let a driver who has been drinking, or who has been awake all night, take the wheel.
• Do not drive in the dark with no tail lights or reflectors.
• Do not argue that “it has always been done”. The Sitapur and Chitrakoot families were doing what many do.

What we could not confirm

The Swarajya report of the Centre’s letter is a news report; we did not find the letter itself on a MoRTH page. Section 66 was read on a third-party legal site. We found no single penalty amount for carrying people in a tractor-trolley, so none is given, and local rules differ. The tractor-trolley case reports differ on the injured count and on the cause. The Chitrakoot hook failure is the District Magistrate’s statement; the reason has not been reported. Safety steps at a crash scene are our general advice and not from a named Indian authority. This page is general information, not legal advice.