Piyush Tewari, founder and CEO of India’s SaveLife Foundation.
Former New Delhi investment banker Piyush Tewari founded a non-profit road safety organization after the needless death of his 16-year-old cousin Shivam Bajpai in Kanpur, India. In vain because after being hit by a motorist, Bajpai bled to death on the side of the road when no one came to his aid.
Under the remnants of British colonial rule that continued after India’s independence in 1947, the police could arrest and interrogate those who assisted in the accident of the victims. Any good Samaritans who might be good were also discouraged by the potential liability for the victims’ medical bills. There was also the fear that you would be guilty if you brought a victim to the hospital.
Bajpai died in 2007. Tewari set up the advocacy group SaveLife Foundation the following year, campaigning to change Indian law so that bystanders would no longer be blamed for helping road accident victims. In a landmark ruling in 2016, the Supreme Court of India ruled that Good Samaritans who provide roadside assistance are protected from any legal and financial implications.
Tewari continues the campaign. He founded the SaveLife Foundation in 2008, running it part-time alongside his role as managing director of the India arm of Calibrated Group, an LA-based private equity fund specializing in healthcare.
“I studied to be a computer engineer but ended up at a private equity fund that was investing in India. At the age of 27, I was appointed as the MD of the company, looking after 150+ employees in India, looking after investments in multiple portfolio companies and increasingly trying to grow presence in the country,” said Tewari.
“I had a very comfortable life. I was making a more than reasonable living. I was able to support my family, including my parents, something I had wanted to do, coming from a difficult background. I thought maybe I would become an entrepreneur myself.”
Everything changed with the death of his cousin.
“On April 5, 2007, my cousin Shivam was returning from school, tried to cross a road and was hit by a vehicle coming in the wrong direction of traffic. The driver of the car panicked, tried to leave the scene and in the process hit him again and this caused [Shivam] the most serious injuries. He stayed on the road for some time. Can you imagine? A 16-year-old boy in school uniform, white shirt, blue trousers and black shoes with a school bag, lying in the street at 3.30 in the afternoon, in broad daylight, in full view of the public. Many people stopped to see what was happening. Many people offered him water. But no one did anything to save his life. No one called the police, no one called the ambulance and no one rushed him to the hospital; he bled to death on the side of the road.
“When I learned about these circumstances, I had a reset in my brain as to what was acceptable to me and what was not acceptable to me. This gave birth to SaveLife.”
Tewari holds a Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology from Delhi University and a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University. He left his well-paying job in international finance in 2011 to run his non-profit.
He has his work cut out for him – there are 170,000 deaths on Indian roads every year. SaveLife campaign to improve road infrastructure, driver behavior and trauma care.
“When we look at road accidents globally, it’s an important public health issue,” Tewari said.
Traffic jam in Delhi, the capital of India. (Photo by Frédéric Soltan/Corbis via Getty Images)
“We lose around 1.2 million people worldwide to road accidents every year. It is the eighth leading cause of death in the world. When we look at these 1.2 million deaths – it’s a very violent form of death – 93% of them suffer from low- and middle-income countries like India.
“170,000 people are killed every year on India’s roads and five times as many are seriously injured or disabled.
“64% of all road deaths in India involve what we call vulnerable road users. These road users are either pedestrians, cyclists or two-wheelers.”
There are few cycle paths in India.
“Unfortunately, when it came to road development, India went the American way, not the European way,” Tewari said.
“We have built most of our roads for cars only, and our highways often have no facilities for pedestrians or cyclists. This requires continued advocacy to ensure that measures are taken for other road users as well.”