To do this, Suzuki Auto South Africa has partnered with FleetMax Africa to develop a special road-safety curriculum called DriveSMART with a Suzuki campaign that it will broadcast across its social media channels.

“Every year, more than 14 000 people die on South Africa’s roads and many thousands more are badly hurt or maimed in vehicle accidents. If you look closely at these statistics, young people are disproportionately affected by vehicle accidents. We want to change that,” says Ashref Ismail, CEO of FleetMax Africa (photo).

Added to the tragic loss of life and its effect on the South African youth, these accidents come at a cost to the economy of more than R150 billion per annum.

FleetMax Africa is a proudly South African transport consultancy whose emphasis lies on driving and road safety training. The company employs a large group of highly qualified individuals from the transport, traffic, road safety and enforcement backgrounds who are led by Ismail who has more than 20 years’ experience in road safety education, traffic management and traffic law enforcement.

Suzuki is also actively partnering with Wheel Well, an organisation that specifically campaigns for children in road safety. It will support Wheel Well’s Halo Beanie project that aims to reduce child pedestrian fatalities and injuries caused by road traffic accidents by providing reflective gear for children in the form of beanies, especially in rural areas.

Returning to the partnership between Suzuki and FleetMax: Suzuki will provide two Grand Vitara GLX models for use in a series of training programmes across South Africa and the filming of road safety videos, which will be between two and three minutes long and will cover more than 120 road safety topics, including defensive driving, vehicle maintenance and many other road safety topics.

“These videos will have a long shelf life and can be shared freely across our social channels and those of our partners, as well as other companies that share our concern with vehicle safety.

“Together we can help turn the tide and make owning and driving a car the exciting key to freedom that it should be for young people,” says Brendon Carpenter, Brand Marketing Manager of Suzuki Auto South Africa.”