One day after the country recorded its 18th road fatality, ANSA Motors has stated plans to encourage road safety in partnership with the non-governmental organisation Arrive Alive.
“As part of our social responsibility as an automotive company, one that’s been around for many years at that, I don’t want to get into statistics and be too morbid, but T&T, at this moment, I think there’s just too much carnage on our roads,” Jerome Borde, managing director of ANSA Motors said at the official launch of the Proton showroom in Port-of-Spain on Wednesday evening.
He added, “I think our driving and the liability, the exposure of lives every day, is becoming something we should all be conscious of.”
Borde’s statement came just one day after 19-year-old Justin Nunez Xavier died in a crash near the Grand Bazaar intersection.
Borde said the company would be stepping up road safety education efforts with Arrive Alive to help prevent more lives from being lost.
“We have made a commitment to do our part in the education (of drivers). We have been partnering with Arrive Alive. We don’t want to reinvent the wheel. They have been doing a phenomenal job in publicly trying to educate driving personnel and we have partnered with them and support them and are going into schools and seeing how we can get to the young generation because sometimes the older ones are harder to teach new tricks,” Borde said.
He explained that the Proton’s safety features encouraged ANSA McAL to reintroduce the brand into the local market.
“It is built primarily around safety and reliability, and this is what really caught our attention. We have some new young drivers coming out. We know that this is going to appeal with all the fancy bells and whistles. We want to make sure part of our responsibility as a company in the environment in which we do our business is to enhance and support that education process,” Borde added.
The launch introduced two crossover SUVs, the Proton X50 and Proton X90, to the market.
Borde noted that Proton’s five-star NCAP rating in Europe and Asia also contributed to ANSA McAL’s decision to partner with the Malaysian brand.
A five-star rating normally signifies that a vehicle would provide overall excellent performance in crash protection and is equipped with comprehensive and robust crash avoidance technology.
ANSA McAL’s automotive sector head Jean-Marc Mouttet said the new Proton would retail between $259,000 to $400,000.
He said the brand had already attracted interest and confirmed at the launch that one model had already been sold.