Arrive Alive prepares for holiday season

By Bontle Moeng, ITWeb trainee journalist

Johannesburg, 07 Nov 2005

The Arrive Alive Web site will assist motorists with information, including basic driving tips, to help them to better prepare for the December holiday season.

"During the holiday season, the Arrive Alive team will assist the Department of Transport to generate death toll figures and traffic congestion information on the Internet," says Johan Jonck, Arrive Alive Web site developer.

"We will soon add content on accident investigations, drunken driving and holiday tips. We will also play close attention to information requested by the public and make it available on the Web site."

Jonck, a Free State-based attorney, started the Arrive Alive Web site in March 2003, in his own capacity after losing his mother and a friend in separate car accidents. He now has private sponsors for the site, including Digicore, Outsurance, Clear Vision Optometrists and Volkswagen.

In addition to planning a road safety campaign for the holidays, the Arrive Alive team is working on generating educational material for the younger generation. "We have designed a road safety character, Freddy, to assist in providing information to children on road safety," says Jonck.

Other long-term plans include a road sign section for obtaining a learners licence and an "ask the expert" for people seeking road safety advice.

Jonck says the public generally seeks information on road safety, statistics, legal issues and ways of becoming a volunteer.

This year, Arrive Alive introduced two links for reporting bad drivers and hazardous road conditions. Jonck says in October, the site received 180 new online registrations as voluntary traffic observers, 86 online requests for information and 105 online reports on bad driving.

"The monthly impressions for October are 214 000, which brings the total number of impressions up to 3.6 million.

"The high number of people visiting the Web site is an indication that people don`t want to be kept in the dark; they want to be empowered with information and they do want to contribute by making suggestions, complaints and reporting offenders," he says.