We interviewed Alida in February 2025, to learn more about her background and what drives her as a road safety advocate and activist. She told us that after her beloved eldest son Tommie Kloppers was tragically killed by a drunk driver in 1996 (just before his 21st birthday) she decided she had to put effort into improving the road safety situation in South Africa. She set about acquiring skills and knowledge in this area and registered the NPO Drive More Safely in 2008 to further this aim. Since then she has received multiple accolades and awards, both local and international (see the website https://drivemoresafely.co.za). However, she says that winning the Thami Radebe Road Heroes Award has been especially meaningful as it is given out by a South African NGO and is specifically focused on road safety rather than broader issues like leadership.  

In Alida’s view, the top road crash risks in South Africa revolve around driver behaviour and driver training systems which don’t adequately prepare people for real-life situations on the country’s roads – instead, they’re mainly focused on preparing them to pass a test. She picks out a special area of concern, namely learner drivers opting for light truck licences (the old ‘Code 10’) to avoid perceived difficulties associated with car licence (the old ‘Code 8’) tests, like parallel parking. She’s firmly of the view that “you can’t run before you can walk” and that the system should prevent ‘Code 10’ licencees automatically being viewed as proficient to drive light motor vehicles.

Asked about her hardest moment during her many years of road safety activism, Alida pauses briefly before referring to a crash on the N1 near Beaufort West in 2012. Two minibus taxis were dicing when a truck did a U-turn, and five children died in the ensuing mayhem. This caused her to look closely at legislation on the loading of children in vehicles, which did not make car seats compulsory, and she then embarked upon a focused Child Safety in the Vehicle campaign. Ensuring that its messages were heard by the authorities required her at one point to block the N1 and N2 going into Cape Town – which, despite causing ire, opened doors for her to explain her reasoning to key local government stakeholders. She stresses that after “forcing the door open” one must engage on a human-to-human level to effect change, whilst never forgetting that public servants must be accountable because “we the people pay their salaries”. She points to the need to be patient and not lose focus, setting examples for others in relation to how activism can work without destroying anything. She comments wrily that she first started knocking on the RTMC’s door in 2010 and it’s very satisfying that the door has recently started opening to a significant extent.

Alida’s key ethos is that road safety stakeholders cannot be islands, or work in siloes – to truly save lives, everyone must work together. She recalls as her most satisfying day the one in 2015 when the law changed and made child restraints compulsory, this being the culmination of three years of activism and “fighting the Minister (of Transport)”. That legislative change felt to her “like the cherry on the cake after all the hard work”. When we enquire about her vision for the future, she prefaces this by commenting that she hopes God blesses her with “quite a long life” so that she can keep “getting into people’s heads” to change attitudes and inspire adherence to the road rules. She then notes that the work she does every day – with almost no funding – will always feel worthwhile because it may save “just one life”. Her pet hope is that people will see that the justifications given for getting truck driver’s licences just don’t add up: broadening job opportunities can’t take precedence over becoming a safe and proficient driver of the vehicles one is most likely to drive. She ends by reiterating her gratitude for having received our Award, because it makes her realise that her hard work has been seen.

Alida receives a certificate, mock cheque and cash prize of R5,000 from the Road Ethics Project.