THAMI RADEBE ROAD HEROES AWARD 2022
Through this award, renamed in honour of our late co-founder Thami Radebe, we recognize someone from any sphere of life who has dedicated visible effort to the road safety cause, assisted people affected by road crashes and shown leadership to reduce road traffic injuries, disabilities and deaths. We’re delighted to announce our 2022 winner and runner-up and tell you a bit about them.
WINNER: Adv Johan Jonck (founder of Arrive Alive)
As the driving force behind the acclaimed Arrive Alive website and information portal in South Africa (www.arrivealive.co.za and www.arrivealive.mobi), Adv Jonck meets and exceeds the award criteria. Having lost his mother Rhona Jonck in a road crash when he was only 2 years old, and later a friend in another crash, he set up Arrive Alive 15 years ago in an internet café in Bloemfontein.
His vision was to develop an effective road safety information portal that will enhance awareness of road safety and save lives, and there is no doubt at all that he has achieved this. In 2021 alone the main website achieved over 1.8 million visitor sessions and more than 3.2 million page views, with the mobile version achieving another 1.6 million visitor sessions and more than 2.8 million page views.
Arrive Alive is regularly featured on TV and radio and hosts large adverts along key roads, especially in holiday seasons, to remind people to drive soberly and safely. It’s also active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube and has built key relationships both with government departments and with related roleplayers in Mining Safety, Construction Safety and the insurance sector.
Adv Jonck has been described as a humble and caring individual who is quick to point to others’ contributions rather than his own. Yet his previous accolades include the 2007 Road Safety Achievement Award from the Guild of Motoring Journalists and a personal mention in the New York Times ahead of the Soccer World Cup in 2010. He has also earned recognition from the Department of Transport and South Africa’s road safety lead agency, the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC), for the service he renders to the public and road safety practitioners alike.
We find Adv Jonck to be an ethical giant and the epitome of a servant leader, and bestow on him the Thami Radebe Road Heroes Award to acknowledge his tireless behind-the-scenes work. We wish him all of the best as he and his team continue empowering people with much-needed road safety knowledge and real-time information on crashes.
Adv Jonck will receive a certificate as well as a cash prize of R5,000 which has been kindly donated by accidentANGELS.
RUNNER-UP: Caroline Rule (occupational therapist)
Caroline is an occupational therapist with a passionate desire to ensure that people with disabilities can drive safely, and that those who are unsafe to drive will not do so. For many years she wrote a column for Rolling Inspiration, the magazine of the QuadPara Association (QASA), and over time she produced eight annual Automobility booklets filled with useful information for people with disabilities. The demand for ongoing access to this kind of information led her to create her Automobility website (www.auto-mobility.co.za), “the only motoring website for People with Disabilities in South Africa”.
This offers videos on how to transfer into and out of vehicles, advice on locating adaptive driving instructors, information on vehicle modifications, tips for safe driving with a disability, relevant legislation and more. Since 2009 Caroline’s private occupational therapy practice, Rolling Rehab, has specialized in driving evaluation and recommending of vehicle adaptations and in 2011 she was a key element in QASA’s project called Driving Ambitions. Caroline shares her knowledge widely and, with other occupational therapists, was instrumental in starting the Driving Fitness Coalition which disseminates research and training to interested practitioners. She also serves on technical and working committees at the South African Bureau of Standards, focused on safe driving and vehicle adaptation standards for people with disabilities. Most recently she has developed a training course aimed at both driving instructors and occupational therapists, which is still to be accredited and launched.
Although Caroline modestly says she does not see herself as involved in road safety, we believe that she has played an immense role in raising awareness of the rights to mobility of people with disabilities and has been a champion of safety, ethics and standards-setting in the way she has gone about this. We wish her all of the best with her practice, her service to a niche community and her future course which will no doubt build capacity for roleplayers within the Safe System approach to road safety.
Caroline Rule will receive a certificate as well as a cash prize of R3,000 which has been kindly donated by accidentANGELS.
