South Africa's newly relaunched road-safety campaign, 'Arrive Alive', aims to make every journey a safe one — but recent tragedies remind us how much work still remains.
On Sunday, 30 November, Barbara Creecy, Minister of Transport, officially launched the 2025 / 2026 '365-Day Arrive Alive Road Safety Campaign', under the banner, "It Starts With Me".
The campaign rests on the view that human behaviour is at the heart of road safety and calls for improved law enforcement, public-awareness messaging and civic responsibility across motorists, pedestrians and passengers alike.
Early signs of enforcement are already visible. On the first day of the festive season campaign alone, law-enforcement authorities arrested more than 90 motorists and issued 5 626 traffic fines, targeting offences such as speeding, drunk or negligent driving and unroadworthy vehicles.
This aggressive enforcement is designed to meet the realities South Africans face on the roads, and precisely those realities were tragically underscored just days before the campaign officially launched.
On Friday, 28 November, in Limpopo, a devastating multi-vehicle collision on the N1 near Makhado claimed the lives of five people and injured 22 others. The crash involved two trucks, a sedan, a bakkie and a minibus taxi with initial reports citing speeding and loss of control as likely contributors.
Meanwhile, only a day later in Johannesburg, a taxi driver was arrested for DUI and traffic violations after allegedly hitting a marathon runner during the Soweto Marathon on Saturday, 29 November. The crash occurred despite traffic controls, indicating persistent risk even under enhanced public event security.
These incidents raise the question: Do high-profile campaigns like 'Arrive Alive' meaningfully shift behaviour, or do they struggle against deeper systemic issues?
Recent data from the Road Traffic Management Corporation, together with 'Arrive Alive', shows that South Africa continues to lose an estimated 12 000 to 14 000 people to road crashes each year. This persistent fatality rate places road accidents among the country's leading causes of unnatural death.
What 'Arrive Alive' demonstrates is the challenge of translating policy and public-messaging into consistent, everyday caution on the roads. The campaign's broad strategy (combining visible law enforcement, community engagement and public-education drives) is perfectly sound.
But, unless such efforts are sustained beyond high-profile launches and festive seasons, and paired with systemic support (e.g. infrastructure maintenance, responsible public-transport regulation), the same patterns of reckless driving, alcohol abuse and preventable accidents are likely to persist.
While 'Arrive Alive' remains a vital initiative and campaign, the recent tragedies remind us that changing road-user behaviour takes more than flashy slogans and sporadic law-enforcement — it demands consistency, accountability and ongoing behavioural reinforcement that lasts long after the headlines fade.
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*Image courtesy of Canva and Facebook
**Information sourced from Jacarandafm, PSA, South African Government News agency, Daily Sun, The Mercury, Arrive Alive and SABC News