CarWale applauds Mumbai Traffic Police's efforts to reduce fatal road accidents from 646 in 2006 to 589 in 2008.
Come next week, CarWale, India’s foremost online car directory will announce the winners for CarWale Awards 2009. And, the Mumbai Traffic, whose commendable efforts for a number of road safety campaigns make them a strong contender for CarWale’s new category ‘Safety initiative of the year 2009’. The 'Environment Initiative of the Year' award has also been introduced by CarWale as both these issues take top priority on the agenda.
Commenting on the new categories, CarWale.com’s CEO, Mohit Dubey said, “Safety and environment are two areas we want to draw everybody’s attention to and there is an immediate need to integrate the two. While safety is an immediate requirement, we need to protect the environment for our survival. And even the smallest effort in these areas is appreciated by CarWale.”
The other nominee for the Safety initiative award 2009 is Hyundai while Honda and Mahindra have been nominated for the Environment initiative award 2009 for introducing hybrid technology to India.
“Though environment is not the top focus for most manufacturers in India, we applaud the efforts a few car makers such as Honda, Mahindra, Hyundai, Mitsubishi and Maruti Suzuki are making to provide vehicles with green fuel options.” added Tufail Khan, VP Marketing, CarWale.com. “In fact, Hyundai has done a great job in terms of safety by introducing six airbags in their small car i20. They have certainly raised standards for safety in small car segment.”
On being nominated for the Safety award, Mr S.S. Solunke, Deputy Commissioner of Police said: "We have succeeded in improving road safety in Mumbai by going farther than the Commission proposed. We undertook campaigns against drunk driving, driving without seatbelts, unnecessary honking and the use of mobile phone while driving. Also, the number of fatal road accidents has fallen from 646 in 2006 to 589 in 2008.”
To further their cause for safety and environment initiatives, the Mumbai traffic police is planning to employ policies such as halting before the stop line, switching off engine at signals and the use and promotion of public transport among other things.
Mr. Solunke added, “These awards will encourage manufacturers to provide cars that are safer and greener and the Mumbai Traffic Police commends CarWale’s initiative to support such causes.”
Besides the safety and environment awards, there are eight other award categories including: India's Favorite Car for Small Families 2009; India's Favorite Car for Large Families 2009; India's Favorite Car for Self-driven Executives 2009; India's Favorite Car for Chauffeur-driven Executives 2009; India's Favorite Car for Offroading Activities 2009; India's Favorite Car for Enthusiasts 2009; Aspirational Car of India 2009 and Jury driven categories are - New Car of the Year 2009.
Prizes in various categories include free fuel for one year, 2-days & 3-nights Goa trip for two including five-star hotel accommodation and return air fare as well as scaled-down car models.
Voting closed on 1st April 2009. For further information, please visit http://www.carwale.com/Awards/2009/
About CarWale.com
CarWale is an online car portal- owned by Automotive Exchange Pvt Ltd, it is backed by leading venture capital firm Seedfund and top tier US venture fund Sierra Ventures. Last year they served more than 10 million Indian car consumers and have influenced approximately $3bn of car transactions in India.
Since its inception, CarWale has been acknowledged as the market leader in the category and honored with many prestigious awards including the Red Herring Asia Top 100, BusinessWeek’s Top 25 young entrepreneurs in Asia and PCWorld Web Award for best automotive website.
