A family vacation turned into tragedy on February 23 when a rented Mahindra Thar SUV slammed into a Hyundai i20 in Assagao, North Goa, killing a 65-year-old Bhopal man.

Beyond the immediate tragedy, the incident has amplified a growing conversation about the Thar’s association with the reckless driving culture on India’s roads. Social media is saturated with Thar reels — speeding, swerving, drifting — projecting an image of invincibility that critics say bleeds dangerously into real-world behaviour.

Haryana’s former director general of police, OP Singh, stoked a debate in November last year with an unusually direct take on the SUV, sold by the country’s second largest carmaker Mahindra & Mahindra. “The choice of car shows the mindset of a person,” Singh said in Gurgaon on November 9, while he was the state’s top cop. “The Thar is not a car, it’s a statement which says this is how I am.” Singh’s remarks came in the wake of a string of road mishaps involving Mahindra’s flagship SUV.

All this raises a question: Do people with a certain personality buy a certain type of car, or does the persona of the car change the person driving it?

This is a subjective topic with not much evidence to draw a single conclusion. But the Haryana DGP’s outburst does reflect a sense of frustration among law enforcement officers tackling rash driving and accidents.

The psychology at play

For many critics, a peculiar psychology comes into play when someone climbs into a Thar, or a similarly sized SUV.

Take, for instance, a viral video of an Indian man driving on the wrong side in his Thar. “The biggest advantage” of the vehicle, he says in the short clip from this year, is that “no one will bother you even if you drive on the wrong side”.

COVID ended, but another epidemic took over our roads the Thartards mentality virus! This mindset is beyond insane.

How does buying a vehicle suddenly delete common sense? It’s honestly shocking and dangerous.

If anyone can genuinely figure out what psychological switch… pic.twitter.com/aZF519zRdv

— Rattan Dhillon (@ShivrattanDhil1) January 11, 2026

The vehicle’s imposing stance, its association with rugged masculinity and its cultural cachet as a status symbol can inflate a driver’s sense of invincibility — a heady cocktail when mixed with India’s mostly lawless road culture.

This is where India’s unique classification of SUVs comes in. Across the world, SUVs are defined as vehicles with either a four-wheel drive or all-wheel drive capability. In India, these are simply vehicles with a high ground clearance (above 170 mm). Taking the cue, carmakers have kept building bigger and bigger vehicles with little consideration for offroading capabilities.

Indeed, most Thars currently on Indian roads are the two-wheel drive version.

The primary appeal, then, is the muscular look and large size, which, in turn, means a higher seating position. And there is empirical evidence to suggest that people conflate a higher seating position in a vehicle with a sense of power. This is why bus and truck driver seats in developed countries are lower than in South Asian countries.

Besides the sheer size of such SUVs, drivers may also feel emboldened by the increased safety features on newer vehicles. And while the masculine appeal of the Thar is a factor that comes to play, an increasing number of women are now the customers of this vehicle, especially in urban areas.

The National Crime Records Bureau does not list vehicle type in its accident data. There is no significant Indian study on this either.

But small sample surveys in other markets offer some association of road rage and rash driving with car brands.

In 2023, Australian insurance company Budget Direct asked 825 Australians aged 18 and over to pinpoint the types of cars most commonly involved in road rage incidents; 49% of the respondents identified Holden owners as the most aggressive drivers on the road. Holden was a GM subsidiary producing cars in Australia.

Holden was followed by BMW, Ford and Mercedes-Benz drivers. Only 3% of respondents named the Korean car brand Kia.

The survey also found an increase in road rage incidents and in the proportion of men involved in these.

Shaking off stereotypes

There are several stereotypes associated with car brands. BMW, for instance, is associated with drivers perceived as aggressive and status-conscious. Mercedes-Benz and Audi are associated with affluence and sophistication.

Toyotas are the choice of practical persons who are less concerned with status while Honda drivers are often seen as environmentally conscious and value-driven.

In Indian internet culture, the Hyundai Creta is also often stereotyped as being driven by people who constantly tailgate, blink headlights and keep honking in their impatience to overtake.

The Thar appears to have joined this long list of stereotypes. An Indian Express query to Mahindra on the incidents involving its vehicle went unanswered. However, one person associated with Mahindra said that when a Maruti Swift or Hyundai Verna crashes, the news is about “a car accident”. But when it’s a BMW or a Thar, the brand becomes the headline. “BMW kills two” or “Thar mows down pedestrian” are all-too-familiar headlines in India’s news cycles.

The result is that premium carmakers, which spend millions to build equity around safety, luxury, and innovation, often find themselves wrongfully associated with recklessness. Mahindra and Tata have made significant efforts towards passenger safety, but the brand takes a beating when there’s an accident.

According to a brand expert, this could also be a case of “brand envy”. The infamous “BMW case” of 1999, in which Sanjeev Nanda was accused of mowing down six people in Delhi, was remembered more for the car than the man behind the wheel.

There are car brands that are doing a lot on the safety communications aspect. Volvo’s “A Million More” campaign spotlighted seatbelt safety. BMW has run anti-texting campaigns. Audi India’s recent “Drive Sure” program trains owners and chauffeurs in responsible driving.

In the case of the Thar, however, the associations with aggression are not going away any time soon.