Appreciate and promote road safety goodwill

There is no limit to what you may achieve if you don’t mind who received the credit….These were the words of inspiration from a friend shortly after I decided to commit myself to the Arrive Alive Road Safety Website.

Creating awareness of road safety requires more than a festive season campaign with big budgets, billboards, television and radio advertisements. It requires constant delivery of road safety messages through a variety of mediums. It is here where online media succeeds in making a significant contribution. This is not limited to those with internet access as these mediums have a much wider reach. By making available the information via internet websites and blogs we enable other media such as newspapers and magazines to distribute these messages to individuals such as teachers for wider distribution amongst their pupils etc.

I don’t know whether psychologists have researched the profiles of bloggers and webmasters – but I have come to understand that there is a lot of goodwill amongst these individuals. I have realized that in the effort to enhance awareness of road safety it is important to know your limitations and to understand that others have specific skills that can contribute to the cause. It is also important to give credit where it is due – and this is why it is so important to acknowledge the goodwill that exists amongst bloggers and webmasters to promote the very important cause of road safety!

I have recently been invited to share road safety information on the blog at carblog.co.za, an excellent opportunity to promote awareness of road safety amongst road users. There has also been kind assistance in sharing information on blogs such as k53blog/ idrive.co.za/blog, ibhubezi.co.za etc. Information from the road safety blog at roadsafety.wordpress.com has been mentioned on blogs such as sarocks.co.za, southafricablog.co.za and many visitors to the Arrive Alive road safety website have come across from prominent websites such as sabcnews.co.za, southafrica.info , enatis.com etc.

Assistance in sharing is not limited to South Africa and road safety enthusiasts such as Dr Joglekar from driving-india.blogspot .com have also committed towards sharing information and exposure. The culture of sharing and recognition amongst bloggers and webmasters bode well for the creation of road safety across the globe.

We need to accept that we are not powerless to perform change. Even though we are not able to repair the roads, check the vehicles for roadworthiness or test the fitness of our drivers – we are able to create an awareness of aspects that can save lives on the roads.

May we hold hands and share expertise in increasing the safety of all our road users!