Statistics reveal that India tops the chart globally as far as road accident fatalities are concerned, contributing 1 per cent of the world’s vehicular population and 10 per cent of road accidents. In an effort to acquaint the masses with road safety measures, Maruti Suzuki organised an exclusive familiarisation tri to the Institute of Driving and Traffic Research (IDTR), Loni, Wazirabad recently.
Set up in partnership with the State Government, the IDTR is a state-of-the-art driving training facility catering to drivers of both passenger and commercial vehicles. Currently, IDTR initiatives are operational at six locations in four States — Delhi (two institutes), Haryana (two) and one each in Gujarat and Uttarakhand. Since the establishment of the first institute in 2000, the company has trained over 700,000 people in safe driving through these institutes.
The driving training at these institutes includes theoretical training in the classroom, practical training on simulators and actual driving training on scientifically designed tracks.
Explaining the historical context, Tarun Garg, V.P. (Sales), Maruti Suzuki, said, “A special team was set up to study international best practices before we entered into a partnership with the Delhi Government. Our focus was to bring in established international practices and new-age equipments like the simulator for training.”
He further explained that a simulator covers a wider aspect of road safety as it includes variant segmentations of climatic conditions, terrain conditions, road signs, speed limits and challans.
Concluding the presentation, Mahesh Rajouria, G.M., Maruti Suzuki, said, “Our curriculum and films focus on behavioural aspects of learners. Many of them know driving but their behaviour on the road is full of stress, anger and all sorts of negativities. Our programmes, films in particular, tackle the psychological pressure points beautifully.”
Besides the IDTR initiatives, Maruti Suzuki introduced the Maruti Driving Schools (MDS) in 2005 and the Road Safety Knowledge Centres in 2011.