Education is key to preventing underage driving

What began as a routine vegetable run on September 8, 2026, ended in sudden tragedy on Nellikuppam Road in Chennai, leaving one man dead and a 14-year-old boy carrying a lifelong burden.

To save a few minutes, the student who took a two-wheeler to a nearby roadside vendor took the wrong side of the road. He struck an approaching motorist, who fell and was run over by a speeding lorry. The man died on the spot.

The young rider is still a child. He may never have intended to harm anyone. Yet one family has lost a loved one, and the child must now live with the consequences of one impulsive decision. Behind this tragedy lies an uncomfortable but unavoidable question: who handed him the key?

Underage driving is not a harmless shortcut, a display of independence, or a sign of permissive modern parenting. It is a preventable danger for which adults must accept responsibility.

Children riding scooters and motorcycles have become a disturbingly common sight in residential lanes, outside tuition centres, near schools and even on arterial roads. We notice them, express concern, and then move on. Some adults dismiss the risk with familiar assurances: “It is only nearby”; “My child rides carefully”; or “Everyone does it.”

Roads, however, do not recognise parental confidence. Only speed, distance, reaction time, and human error is what matters.

India’s road-safety burden is already enormous. According to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, the country recorded 4,80,583 road accidents and 1,72,890 deaths in 2023, approximately 474 lives lost every day. Two-wheeler users constituted the largest share of those killed. Wrong-side driving and lane indiscipline were associated with 9,432 deaths.

These are not merely statistics. Each number represents an empty chair at a dining table, a family changed forever and a future abruptly taken away.

The World Health Organization identifies road traffic injuries as the leading cause of death among children and young adults aged five to 29. On Indian roads, where pedestrians, cyclists, two-wheelers, cars, buses and heavy vehicles often compete for limited space, one impulsive decision can trigger a chain of events that nobody can reverse.

Adolescents can certainly be intelligent, capable, and responsible. However, the areas of the brain involved in planning, impulse control, anticipating consequences, and resisting peer pressure continue to develop through adolescence and into early adulthood. This does not mean that every teenager is reckless. It explains why legal safeguards, proper training and adult supervision are essential.

Eighteen is also the age at which India grants voting rights and generally recognises legal adulthood. Such thresholds exist because judgement and emotional maturity develop gradually, not because a birthday magically transforms a person.

The law rightly places responsibility on adults. When a juvenile commits a motor-vehicle offence, Section 199A of the Motor Vehicles Act provides for serious consequences for the guardian or vehicle owner, subject to the safeguards prescribed in law. These may include imprisonment of up to three years, a fine of ₹25,000 and cancellation of the vehicle’s registration for 12 months. The juvenile may also be prevented from obtaining a driving licence until the age of 25.

Yet enforcement alone cannot correct a behaviour that families quietly permit.

Education must become a central part of the solution. Road safety should not be reduced to an occasional assembly, poster-making competition or annual awareness week. It must be taught progressively as an essential life skill and a part of citizenship education. Children should understand traffic signs, pedestrian rights, helmet use, blind spots, stopping distance and the consequences of speeding, distraction and wrong-side driving.

The learning must also go beyond memorising rules. Age-appropriate case studies, simulated road situations, conversations with accident survivors, first-aid training and interactions with traffic police can help students understand how quickly a casual decision can become irreversible. Older students should be taught about adolescent brain development, risk perception, peer pressure and the legal consequences of underage driving. The objective is not to frighten them, but to build judgement before they are legally permitted to take control of a vehicle.

Schools witness the contradiction closely. They conduct road-safety programmes and repeatedly request that parents to not permit underage driving, only to see students arrive at or leave the school vicinity on vehicles they are legally too young to use. Schools can educate, counsel and alert. They cannot patrol every home.

Parents must therefore become active partners in road-safety education. A child who is taught traffic discipline at school but watches a parent jump signals, drive on the wrong side or use a mobile phone at the wheel receives two conflicting lessons. In such situations, adult behaviour will often speak louder than the classroom.

Parents sometimes get confused into thinking that being “cool” or progressive means giving children smartphones, powerful two-wheelers, or even cars much earlier than necessary. Love is expressed through access, while refusal is feared as emotional distance. But every desire need not become an entitlement. A parent’s firm “no” can be an act of protection not only for one’s child, but also for every unknown person sharing the road.