Tackling Road Safety with IRSC

When it comes to India, there are several stats that are quite worrisome. For me, it’s the fact that India reports the highest number of road accident deaths of any country in the world. Not just that, this figure is so high that it accounts for 11% of the world's road accidents. Due to a lack of comprehensive data, the exact number of unreported accidents in India is unknown, but experts widely agree that a significant portion of road accidents go unreported, particularly in rural areas. Although there are many measures taken by the government to improve the situation, it always helps to do more. We at CARS24 are motivated by our vision of “better drives, better lives” and it’s very important to us that our roads remain safe. 

Keeping all these factors in mind, we started working with India Road Safety Campaign (IRSC) – it’s been less than two months and I am already feeling hopeful that we are making a difference. It’s one thing to launch something with the right intentions but it’s quite something to actually see an incredible response. 

Let me walk you through some of our initiatives –

Road Safety Townhall: Safety starts at home first, so first we need to create awareness in our own organisation. So, for the first time ever, we conducted a townhall focused solely on road safety. During this event, we realised that although most people are aware of the importance of road safety, not everyone is aware of concepts like preventable crashes, road safety myths, the power of small actions, etc. Through a series of questions and answers, we were able to dispel a lot of misinformation regarding road safety as well. We plan to organise similar insightful events in the near future.

First Responder Training: When an accident takes place on the road, the first few minutes are very critical (it’s called the golden hour) and that’s when help is most urgently needed. The issue is, most bystanders want to help but don’t really know how to help. This is where First Responder Training (FRT) comes into play. We organised an FRT workshop at our Gurgaon headquarters and 100+ Autonauts (that’s what we call ourselves at CARS24) learned so many invaluable lessons in providing help to road accident victims – from performing CPR to using the first aid box efficiently to communicating properly with the victim. We hope this inspires more people to recognise the importance of First Response and take action.

SuperApp Features: We made road safety more accessible than ever with new features on the CARS24 app. These new features are helping us make a difference:

• Pothole Reporting & Resolution to improve road conditions
• Location-based helpline numbers for quick emergency assistance
• Simple road safety guidelines to promote responsible driving
• A user-friendly guide to traffic laws to keep everyone informed
• A daily road safety quiz to make learning road safety fun & engaging

Road Safety Billboards: The fastest way to connect with the youth is to speak in the language they understand better. So, we took our message to the streets — quite literally! We put up some eye-catching billboards across Delhi NCR and Bangalore, delivering attention-grabbing content that resonated with Gen Z and Millennials—the two most vulnerable age groups in road crashes. As expected, we received a positive response for this initiative. 

So, what’s next?

We are only getting started. We are planning to launch a series of measures and events that would help tackle road safety at a much larger scale. Sharing a sneak peek of what’s on the cards in this regard –

• A one-of-a-kind hackathon on Road Safety for Autonauts 
• Expanding First Responder Training to more people across different cities (not restricted only to headquarters) 
• Launching some more cool new safety features in the App to affect good road behaviour
• Building an in-house volunteer team of passionate changemakers from scratch

We started 2025 with these initiatives, in line with National Road Safety Month, but for us, this is a long-term commitment for us. All things said and done, this is just the beginning. CARS24 wants to continue playing a critical role in making our roads better and most importantly, help save lives.