A year on and IMPERIAL continues to advocate for safer roads
Posted on 26 November 2024 in General
On Thursday 8 November, IMPERIAL, the diversified industrial services and retail group with a large footprint in the transport and logistics sector, commemorates the first anniversary of its I-Pledge road safety initiative which has attracted over 101,000 pledges from both IMPERIAL employees and the South African public representing a groundswell of road users committed to the cause of safer roads.
The campaign calls on road users to acknowledge and abandon their bad habits such as not wearing seat belts, drinking and driving, speeding, succumbing to road rage, distracted driving through in-car cell phone use and jaywalking.
This has been encouraged through IMPERIAL’s outdoor and radio campaign, pledge signing events at corporates, schools, tertiary institutions, the Top Gear Festival in June and the Getaway Show in September, among many others.
IMPERIAL CEO Hubert Brody says that IMPERIAL will be focusing on a number of high impact projects going forward.
“One of the IMPERIAL I-Pledge flagship initiatives will be the Scholar Patrol Upliftment Programme, which in partnership with the Department of Basic Education and Active Education, will see us working with 20 schools for a month in order to refurbish pedestrian markings at these school entrances, training educators and scholar patrollers in the basics of road safety awareness and sponsoring scholar patrol equipment, signage and visibility bibs.”
Another significant project is the IMPERIAL Car Seat Drive which was inspired by Drive More Safely and Wheel Well, two organisations which call for donations of unused or second hand baby and child car seats. The seats are refurbished, cleaned and quality checked before they are distributed to families who are unable to afford these expensive but necessary items. Not only has IMPERIAL called on its employees to support the initiative, but it also partnered with 94.7 Highveld Stereo’s Breakfast Xpress for a two-week long collection initiative. To date, IMPERIAL has amassed over 700 seats. Members of the public are invited to deliver car seats to IMPERIAL Ford and Mazda dealerships around the country.
Brody has also called upon IMPERIAL companies and employees to become a ‘beacon of light’ on the roads by driving with their headlights on from November through to the end of January. “It has been proven that daytime headlight use increases visibility and takes us that much closer to our shared goal of safer roads,” he says.
“We continue to drive IMPERIAL’s presence as South Africa’s transportation leader and making sure that safer roads remain our part of who we are. Please join us on this journey.”
Take the I-Pledge at www.ipledge.co.za. Follow @IPledgeZA on Twitter or join its Facebook community