Turn the safety on with Waze

What has Maxis proposed to Waze to form a partnership until the year end?

Let’s face it, we all drive safer than usual whenever there is a young bright presence in the car with us, but those youngsters aren’t always in the car with us. So just as that young presence steps out of the car to attend school or whatever extra-curricular activities we will immediately revert back to that road demon that we are.

Building on that thought, Maxis has decided to collaborate with Waze to put that child’s voice in the car with you every time you drive out. Maxis is calling this first of a kind project Safe Mode Kids to encourage parents to drive safer even when their children isn’t in the car with them.

The Safe Mode Kids project features kid-sourced voices of Malaysian children aged three to 12 to develop an innovative way of reminding parents to drive safer. Unlike other Waze special voice packs that usually feature a single celebrity voice, the Safe Mode Kids project includes a total of 20 bright young talents’ voices to read out the Waze directional prompts. The voice pack also includes cute reminders from the children to drive safe on the road like: “All set. Don’t forget your seatbelt.”

Maxis is proud to announce that Waze has made the voice pack available globally to all the tens of millions of Waze users around the world. Commenting on this decision, Eleanne Hattis, Waze, Head of APAC said, “Safety is the utmost mission for any new feature or campaign Waze develops as we work together with citizens to improve their time in the car. We're proud to work with Maxis on this project, amplifying a common goal to use mobile technology to promote safer roadways. People generally drive safer with children in the car, and we believe this is an attention-grabbing feature that will assist in spreading the cause.”

The launch of the Safe Mode Kids is also timely with the upcoming festive season which makes up one of the busiest travel periods of the year. All you need to do to download the voice pack is to head to the settings on Waze to download. The voice pack will be up and available for download until the end of 2015. Jerrica Leong