For years, road safety campaigns in India have followed a familiar script – high-decibel messaging, periodic enforcement drives and bursts of public attention that rarely translate into lasting behavioural change.
Ride Safe India, a decade-old road safety programme led by Hero MotoCorp, is increasingly moving away from broad awareness campaigns towards a more targeted, execution-led model – one that focuses less on what people know but more on how they behave.
Over the last 10 years, Ride Safe India has reached more than 1.6 million people through sustained interventions across schools, communities and high-risk rider groups. Yet, the more notable change lies in how the programme is being restructured today.
The latest edition, launched during National Road Safety Month 2026, reflects a clear pivot: identify the most vulnerable or influential road users, and intervene at points where behavior is actually formed. Students, gig workers and women riders form the core of this effort, with interventions designed around how people move, learn and make decisions on the road.
Spread across 7 cities – Delhi, Gurugram, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Nagpur and Haridwar, the campaign focused on three distinct groups: School students, Gig economy riders and Women riders – each representing a different layer of India’s evolving mobility landscape.
Starting Early: Building Behaviour That Lasts
One of the strongest levers for long-term change is early exposure. Among these, schools emerged as a critical intervention point. Focusing on the safety of young road users, the campaign kicked-off with 63,000+ dual parent–child road Digital Road Safety Pledges for families.
To shape safer roads – ‘one child at a time’, Hero MotoCorp organized a national level road safety workshop and drawing competition for students, encouraging families to pledge for safer roads and responsible behavior. Physical interventions supported by classroom sessions and simulation-based learning were organized across 60+ schools to help students understand how road behaviour works in real situations.
What made this approach more effective is the partnership with the International Road Federation (IRF), which brought structured workshops and simulation-based training into schools. Students were not just told about road safety but put in situations where they had to think through decisions. That kind of active learning tends to stay with children far longer than a poster on a wall or a one-off assembly talk.
In a notable public endorsement, the Ride Safe India tableau won First Prize at the 77th Republic Day celebrations in Gurugram which was also attended by Honorable CM Nayab Singh Saini, highlighting the initiative’s growing traction within state-led road safety efforts.
As a part of the campaign, the Company aims to create Safe School Zones around 10 key institutions across Delhi-NCR and Jaipur, with visible infrastructure changes that slow traffic and make streets safer for children regardless of individual behaviour. In addition, the work on creating an ideal road safety corridor is in progress with 160 signages across 8 intersections around Vikas Marg in Gurugram.
Gig Workers: From Exposure to Preparedness
If students represent the future of road behaviour, gig workers reflect its most immediate risks. Delivery riders today spend long hours, tight timelines, and navigating congested urban roads, often under pressure. Despite this, formal training in safety and emergency response has remained limited in our country.
The Surakshit Saathi initiative is a step towards bridging this gap – directly by focusing on both prevention and response. In partnership with Traffic Police and IRF, more than 2,500 riders have undergone structured training that goes beyond safe riding practices – focusing on modules that cover emergency response, first aid and on-ground decision-making during accidents.
By equipping and training those already on the road as First Responders, the programme is effectively decentralizing emergency support – embedding it within the riding community itself.
Women Riders: Expanding the Conversation
Road safety in India has largely been discussed without fully accounting for women as independent riders. While female riders have been steadily rising, road safety narratives have not kept pace with this shift.
The Women’s Night Bike Rally – #SheRidesForSafety in Gurugram brought together over 200+ women riders –marking a key chapter in Ride Safe India’s inclusive road safety mission. The initiative was anchored in a resolve to place women at the center of India’s road safety narrative. When more women are seen riding, especially in conditions where visibility has traditionally been low, it begins to change both perception and behaviour on the road.
Making Safety Visible in Everyday Moments
Behaviour change does not come from a single interaction. It builds through repetition and visibility.
To address this, Ride Safe India has expanded its footprint into everyday public spaces – signages across 100 fuel stations, 500 safety messages, 250 mobile billboards as everyday reminders, traffic park activations and engagements at high urban traffic zones – where riders naturally spend time. The underyling idea was simple: behavior is more likely to change when cues are constant and not occasional.
Designing for Safety, Not Just Promoting It
Awareness alone cannot solve a structural problem – real impact comes from the role of vehicle design in improving safety outcomes. In a market dominated by entry and mid-segment two-wheelers, democratizing safety features in mass segments can really be a game changer.
The Company aims to incrementally bring the ‘big bikes’ features to create an added safety layer for all vulnerable riders. When braking systems, stability features, ergonomics, telematics and rider alerts become standard rather than premium additions, safety moves from being a choice to a baseline. This is where scale matters. With millions of riders on the road, even small improvements in product design can translate into meaningful changes in outcomes.
Closing the Gap Between Knowing and Doing
India’s road safety challenge has long been described as a gap between awareness and action.
The challenge lies in consistency. People know the rules, but do not always follow them. Enforcement exists but is not always visible. Infrastructure improves, but behaviour does not always keep pace.
Ride Safe India is an effort towards bridging this gap. By focusing on behaviour, environment and repeated reinforcement, it moves away from one-time campaigns towards something more sustained.
Ride Safe India 2026 — Impact at a Glance
- 1.6 million+ people reached through Hero MotoCorp’s decade-long road safety efforts-
- 2,500+ gig workers trained and certified as first responders under Surakshit Saathi
- 60+ schools covered through awareness and training programmes
- 10 Safe School Zones established with physical infrastructure
- Over 200 women riders participated in the #SheRidesForSafety Night Rally, Gurugram
- 500 safety message standees across 100 fuel stations covered through community awareness drives
- 250 mobile billboards deployed as on-road safety reminders
- 7 cities Delhi, Gurugram, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Nagpur and Haridwar
