Digital News South Africa

Arrive Alive boosted by privately funded online campaign

The Arrive Alive campaign, aimed at reducing the number of road deaths in South Africa, is receiving an unofficial boost from Johan Jonck and his team of IT gurus, who are running the www.arrivealive.co.za website out of their own pockets.

Jonck started the unofficial website when people close to him were killed on the road. He felt that so much more could be done for the campaign using the internet as a medium than what was being done on the two-page official government site, www.transport.gov.za/projects/arrive/.

Having legally acquired the www.arrivealive.co.za domain name, he set out to create a portal providing far more detailed information on issues of road safety and the improvement of driving skills, even covering topics such as how to deal with aggressive drivers and identify tired drivers early on. A work in progress, new topics and information are continually being added.

Since the launch of the website on 14 March 2003 the website has accumulated 1 588 unique visitors and 66 000 impressions. There have been favourable write ups about the website in the Beeld and Volksblad newspapers, with Volksblad giving it a 9/10 rating. It was also website of the week on the 5FM website.

According to Jonck, the driving force behind the development of the site is that while we might not all be able to contribute financially, we can all add intellectual capital through ideas, recommendations and taking part in the discussions on road safety. Readers are therefore invited to visit www.arrivealive.co.za and make their voices heard in this joint private effort to create public awareness on road safety.

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