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Making South African roads safer this festive season
03 December 2013 , Today at the Jeppe Quondam in Bedforview, IMPERIAL I-Pledge handed 10 patrol vehicles to the N3 Toll Concession (N3TC) and 2 vehicles to the N1N4 Bakwena toll route concessionaire - in an aim to increase and boost route surveillance, patrol support and post-crash care activities during the busy festive season. This is the third consecutive year that a project of this nature has been undertaken – supported by IMPERIAL’s Europcar who are providing the vehicles. The vehicles will be available for this purpose from 07 December up until the end of the busy holiday season (07 January 2013).
“IMPERIAL I-Pledge, as one of the biggest road users, is constantly looking for ways to ensure that we make South African roads safer for everyone and that we contribute towards increasing support for other organisations who share the same philosophy - and our partnership with the toll concessionaires aims to do exactly this,” says Niki Cronje, group marketing at IMPERIAL. “These two routes have previously been recorded as those which have high volumes of traffic during the December period and as such, increasing patrol support and emergency assistance in these areas is key to meeting our objectives of contributing towards safer roads.”
The vehicles that will be handed over, will be branded with reflective IMPERIAL branding so that they are easily identifiable by the road user and will look to assist Road Incident Management Services in attending to - and reporting on - incidents along the N3, N1 and N4 routes during the busy holiday season. Additionally, the vehicles will be on hand to assist motorists that require roadside assistance including: fuel, tyre changes and further breakdown support.
“This partnership has proven its success over the past few years and we believe that this year will be much the same – with strong highway patrol support over a time where it is most needed - while also assisting IMPERIAL I-Pledge to achieve its objective of making South African roads safer,” says Dawn Nathan Jones, CEO at Europcar.
10 vehicles will be operated on the N3 Toll Route between Heidelberg in Gauteng and Cedara in KwaZulu Natal, while Bakwena N1N4 has been allocated 2 vehicles for this purpose.
The N3TC, together with Community Medical Services (a group of volunteer paramedics) and Angels in Motion (volunteer counselors in Ladysmith), will be supporting victims of crashes as part of N3TC’s Duduza initiative, where 3 of the vehicles supplied by IMPERIAL’s Europcar will be used as a support unit operating in Van Reenen’s Pass for this specific function.
“IMPERIAL I-Pledge has supported the toll concessionaires over a number of busy seasons – where last year we saw a decrease in the number of crashes and fatalities on these routes,” concludes Cronje. “With the additional support this year and a strong focus on assisting across a number of emergency areas, we believe that we will see the same positive influence garnered previously by this very critical road safety and support project.”
