Three youths were killed on the spot when their car rammed the median on Velachery Main Road in Medavakkam late on Saturday night. Two others in the car suffered mild injuries.
Traffic police identified the victims as Prabhakaran (30) of Madurai, who was driving the car, S.Dilip Kumar (24) of Nanmangalam near Tambaram and S.Sathish Kumar (24) of Salem. While Prabhakaran was a senior executive at Wipro's Business Process Outsourcing, Sathish and Dilip were employed with Flextronics.
Prabhakaran lived in a rented house in Madipakkam and picked up his friends on the way. After filling petrol at Rajakilpakkam, they were travelling towards Pallikaranai for dinner.
At 11.40 p.m., the car rammed into the median and came to a halt after hitting the lamppost, traffic police said, adding that Prabhakaran had lost control. The three of them died instantly while two others Gopakumar and Ramesh escaped with minor injuries.
The bodies were taken to Tambaram Taluk Government Hospital in Chromepet and were handed over to their relatives after post-mortem.
Traffic police said they suspect the car was travelling at a high speed when the accident took place.
Some residents of Vijayanagar in Medavakkam, who were woken up by a loud noise rushed to the spot. Even before they could call for help, the three young men died, while the two others managed to crawl out of the car to safety.
A complaint has been lodged by Venkatesh, a resident of Vijayanagar.
