Homegrown on-demand taxi-booking platform – MyTeksi has announced that it is adopting Waze Safe Mode Kids to promote road safety amongst fellow taxi drivers this Raya festive season. Waze Safe Mode Kids is a special Waze navigation pack created by Maxis, utilising Malaysian children’s voices.
Safe Mode Kids is a never-before-done collaboration between Waze and Maxis. The idea behind the project was inspired by a survey that found 97% of Malaysian parents claimed they drive safer when their children are in the car. Maxis ‘kid-sourced’ voices of Malaysian children aged 3 to 12, which also included two of my friends’ children. Pretty cool right?
Safe Mode Kids is in fact, the first ever kid-sourced voice navigation pack globally, and now available to more than 50 million Waze users. Eat your heart out, Arnold (OK OK, you’ll be back, I hear you).
If you haven’t tried Safe Mode Kids yet, well, you should. It’s cute. You get directional prompts with adorable reminders to drive safe. “All set. Don’t forget your seatbelt,” “Rerouting. Eyes on the road!” and “Accident reported ahead. Please be careful, ok?”
‘Kid-sourcing’ kicked off in June and started with 100 parents who volunteered their children. Subsequently, 60 children were auditioned, with lines to record. This then filtered down to 20 voices that were finally picked for the final voice pack. Check out the video below:
Cheryl Goh, MyTeksi VP of marketing said that MyTeksi has always been about safer rides and that Safe Mode Kids is a great way to remind drivers to be always safe on the road, in a cute manner of course. “We want to ensure everyone will balik kampung in a smooth and safe manner,” she said.
“We at Maxis are big fans of MyTeksi and how it has changed the way so many Malaysians move around, and we’re so glad to be joining forces with them to wish all Malaysians Hari Raya Selamat this year,” said Sulin Lau, Head of Marketing Services of Maxis.
To use the Safe Mode Voice Pack, do this:
- Download/open Waze
- Select Settings
- Click on Sound
- Go to Voice Language
- Select “English (US) – Safe Mode with Kids” (powered by Maxis)
It’s great to see two homegrown brands coming together to impart positive change on the community. MyTeksi, my preferred taxi-hailing app, has been bringing about plenty of positive changes to the transportation industry since its inception in 2012. This is another initiative to make our roads safer for drivers and passengers.
For those traveling during the Raya holidays, fire up Waze Safe Mode Kids and drive safe.
Selamat Hari Raya and Maaf Zahir Batin.
