Maruti-Autocar Young Driver contest promotes safe driving.

Faridabad’s Sumit Kukreja has won the second edition of the Maruti Suzuki-Autocar Young Driver 2010 contest. He beat 30 other competitors from across the country at the national finals held at the Institute of Driving Training and Research (IDTR), Loni Road.

The competition is a nationwide search for India’s best young driving talent and tested the competitors’ knowledge of traffic rules and awareness of road safety along with their real-world driving skills. The two-month-long contest – held across 22 cities – is a part of Maruti’s National Road Safety Mission, which was launched in December 2008 to impart driving training to at least 500,000 people in the next three years.

While giving away a new A-star as the grand prize, Maruti Suzuki India executive officer (marketing and sales) Mayank Pareek said, “India ranks among the highest in the world in road accident fatalities with over 100,000 deaths every year on our roads.

Around 78 percent of these accidents happen due to the driver's fault. We suffer from low awareness on the need for quality driving training and lack of modern infrastructure for the same. Maruti Suzuki has been actively introducing world class driving training and infrastructure across country through Maruti Driving Schools and IDTRs. The Young Driver Contest is one more step to create awareness among the general public.”

Hormazd Sorabjee, editor, Autocar India and Autocar Professional, said: “The root cause of the high accident rate in India is because of poor driving. This objective of this event is to develop safe driving skills and inculcate a safe driving culture in our youth.”