EACH year during the Hari Raya Aidilfitri celebrations — which will arrive in less than a month — thousands of Malaysians will be on the road for their balik kampung trips.
However, the grim fact is that hundreds of road accidents happen during the festive season.
Statistically speaking, the loss of lives of around one per cent of Malaysia’s total population each year due to road accidents is a big, scary number.
In an effort to reduce road accidents and improve road safety, Shell Lubricants Malaysia through its market-leading Shell Helix brand of motor oil partners and Waze, the country’s most popular traffic and navigation app, are introducing an accident-prone spots alert.
The new feature which is Asia’s first is a special alert that will pop up on Waze to remind drivers to be extra cautious when they approach any of the 50 accident-prone spots across Peninsular Malaysia.
The alert will be active from May 16 to July 15 to help motorists to drive more safely, especially during the peak travel periods at the beginning of Ramadan, and during and after Aidilfitri.
Shell Lubricants Malaysia and Singapore marketing manager Alex Lim said: “Shell Helix is taking its road safety practices further through its smart collaboration with Waze so that drivers can take to the roads with less worry.”
Waze Malaysia business manager Edward Ling said the new feature used crowd sourced data contributed by Wazers that reflect the real situations on Malaysian roads to identify top crash locations.
“We are delighted to work with Shell Helix to launch this initiative that reminds drivers to stay extra safe. By reducing crashes, we will also reduce traffic jams that are caused by accidents. This benefits everyone,” said Ling.
During the pre-peak travel period, Shell Helix will also be running a special oil change promotion for Waze users and members of the public who catch its Aidilfitri video on YouTube and Facebook to remind car owners to service their cars before embarking on a smoother “balik kampung” journey.
By presenting a unique promo code that will be flashed on the Waze app and in the video, car owners are entitled to a discount of up to RM30 when they bring their cars in for an oil change service at participating Shell Helix branded workshops and Shell retail stations’ Lubebay service outlets.