Maruti trains over one million people at its driving schools

Maruti Suzuki India’s driver training initiative has seen over a million people get enrolled and trained at the multiple Maruti Driving Schools across India, the carmaker said in a release today.

The cumulative enrolment at its various driving training facilities has touched a record 3 million since it started driving training in the year 2000. This includes new and existing drivers, for private as well as commercial vehicles, at Institutes of Driving and Traffic Research (IDTR) and Maruti Driving Schools all over the country.

Besides managing six IDTRs in partnership with state governments, Maruti Suzuki supports safe driving in the country by laying down standards for quality driving training, including a dynamic curriculum covering theory and practice. The company also provides state-of-the-art driving simulators and training vehicles and develops instructors to impart quality training.

Commenting on the milestone, Mahesh Rajoria, assistant vice president, Driving and Training, Maruti Suzuki India said, “Road safety is a critical issue for India, and requires a multi-pronged approach including licensing, enforcement, road design, vehicle standards and trauma care. Research and data analysis can help us decide the correct way forward. Government data shows that over 70% road accidents are caused by driver fault. Given this, and the poor quality of driving training infrastructure in India, Maruti Suzuki focuses on setting up world class driving training infrastructure and impart education in safe driving.”

Maruti currently has over 360 driving schools across the country; which are operated in partnership with its dealer partners. The driving schools are equipped with advanced driving simulators to create on-road driving situations and offer a mix of classroom and practical training by trained instructors, including women. Almost 50 percent of those enrolled at MDS are women. The company encourages people to take up driving as a profession through social programs like Unnati where women are imparted training in etiquettes and customer relations, besides building the skill of safe driving.

Maruti Suzuki has also set up IDTRs in collaboration with state governments. Equipped with scientifically engineered training and testing tracks of international standards, state-of-the-art driving simulators and well-maintained vehicles, these IDTRs follow a structured training content including classroom and practical sessions. It manages six IDTRs (two each in Haryana, and Delhi NCR, one each in Uttarakhand and Gujarat). While the MDS focuses on personal car driving, the IDTR additionally trains drivers for commercial driving including trucks, buses and other heavy motor vehicles and taxi & three-wheelers.

It is also working closely with the Ministry of Tribal Development in Gujarat to train tribal youth in safe driving. Besides road safety, this residential IDTR facility near Vadodara approaches driving also as an employment opportunity. Nearly 8000 young tribal people, mostly landless farm workers and unskilled construction workers, have been trained, groomed and employed.   

In addition to the driving training through IDTR and MDS, Maruti Suzuki also imparts training to the fleet drivers of trucks and trailers that take away finished vehicles to the dealers. Over 45,000 such drivers have benefitted from such training by the company, over the past four years.

The company has also established 10 Road Safety Knowledge Centres (RSKC) in partnership with Haryana Transport Department and Haryana Police. Through this RSKC facility, it helps local police in traffic management by way of training. Special modules are designed for traffic offenders and licence seekers at the RSKC centres.

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