Exceeding lawful speed is a single most important driver error responsible for causing road accidents and has accounted for 66.5% of driver error related faults in India. In the present study, speeding behaviour of drivers was examined to identify significant risk factors associated with this traffic violation. Risk factors including driver characteristics, vehicle, environmental and crash/accident attributes were considered. Most recent crash data (N = 5254) of 2 years (2015–2016) for the Indian metropolitan city, Chennai was analysed from the Government of Tamil Nadu database RADMS (Road Accident Data Management System). Contingency tables were constructed to assess the association between the risk factors and speeding behaviour at a 10% significance level. To further estimate the effect of different predictor variables on the likelihood of occurrence of speeding, logistic regression analyses were carried out. Results showed that (i) male drivers, (ii) drivers without a valid driving licence, (iii) single-lane roads, (iv) uncontrolled junction roads, (v) all type of vehicles, (vi) presence of central dividers, (vii) daylight were associated with speeding-related accidents. Results of the present study can help transportation officials to frame policies to mitigate accident and deaths due to speeding. © 2019, © 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC and The University of Tennessee.