Gurugram, Jun 23, 2025: Every four minutes, someone in India dies in a road crash, an invisible crisis we’ve come to accept. Road deaths outnumber fatalities from violent crime, terrorism, or natural disasters, yet remain buried in silence.
CARS24, a full-stack auto-tech platform, is stepping in to change that with the launch of Crashfree India, a mission-first non-profit with a single, ambitious goal: zero road fatalities by 2040. The company has already kickstarted foundational work across five critical areas: data infrastructure, policy reform, road design, technology and behavioural change.
According to media reports, India accounts for nearly 11% of global road crash fatalities, the highest in the world. These aren’t isolated incidents, they are the result of broken infrastructure, fragmented regulations, poor enforcement and years of public desensitization.
Crashfree India will approach the problem through a systems-thinking lens, building long-term, scalable solutions across:
- Crash Data Infrastructure: One of India’s largest open crash data repositories: mapping blackspots, predicting high-risk zones and building AI-powered tools for public and government use.
- Policy Innovation: Working with transport departments and enforcement agencies to shift from reactive penalties to preventive, enforceable safety systems.
- Human-Centered Road Design: Partnering with civic bodies and urban designers to fix flawed layouts and engineering decisions that silently cost lives.
- Behavioural Change at Scale: Driving ground-up, hyper-local campaigns built on behavioural science and storytelling, not guilt, fear, or tokenism.
- Tech & Product for Safety: Building open APIs and digital tools for crowdsourced crash reporting, real-time alerts, and integrating safety scores into vehicle resale, financing, and fleet operations.
Crashfree India will also spotlight India’s Good Samaritan Law, which protects bystanders who help crash victims. While legal protection exists, awareness and trust remain low. The non-profit will build public confidence in the law, encourage response training and recognize individuals who step up in critical moments, turning hesitation into action.
Vikram Chopra, CEO & Co-founder, CARS24, said: “We have built a company that touches almost every part of car ownership in India. But if we stop at buying and selling, we’re missing the point. Crashfree India is our most important bet yet, not to build a better business, but a better India. One where no parent loses a child to overspeeding, a drunk driver, or a broken signal. We may not reach zero quickly. But we’ll never stop moving toward it.”
Crashfree India is implemented by Vision Zero Trust and advised by road safety experts, Amar Srivastava and Deepanshu Gupta, co-founders of the Indian Road Safety Council (IRSC), India’s largest youth-led road safety movement. Their experience in policy and grassroots mobilization will help address core issues across infrastructure, enforcement and public behaviour. The aim is simple: replace fragmented fixes with long-term systems that work.
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