Regent Insurance has launched its 2016 Highway Heroes campaign. Prize money has been increased to R135 000, which will be awarded to South Africa’s top three truck drivers and to the fleet owner of the first placed driver.

Paul Dangerfield, Highway Heroes campaign manager at Regent Commercial Vehicles (RCV), says one of the aims of the initiative is to raise road users’ awareness of the many challenges that truck drivers face in the course of their work, with the daily threat of hijacking being one of the more obvious.

“From our claim statistics, we have pinpointed other challenges that truck drivers face: excessively long hours on the road; being pushed to speed; driving at night; high traffic volumes; impatient road users; lack of driver training; and that there are not enough safe places for truck drivers to stop overnight.”

“We also believe that this platform presents a perfect opportunity to start changing road users’ perceptions that truck drivers are reckless and that they are largely responsible for the unacceptably high accident rate in this country,” adds Dangerfield.

Participants are evaluated by means of stringent analysis of driving techniques and behaviours via telematic data obtained from the fleet owner. This is combined with an analysis of the results obtained over a 60-day period from telematics devices installed in the trucks of the 15 finalists.

Entries opened on 1 March 2016, with the winner and two runners-up to be selected from the finalists shortlist before the awards announcement in November this year. The winning driver will win R75 000 in cash and prizes while the runners-up will receive prizes worth R40 000 and R20 000 respectively.