When dusk starts to settle, the Highway Junction Truck Stop at Harrimsith becomes a hive of activity as more than a thousand truck drivers descend here to park overnight, refuel, fill up on essentials, take a shower, socialise with friends and get some much-needed rest from their grueling jobs moving freight along South Africa’s busy highways.

Operating 24-hours a day, seven days a week, the Highway Junction Truck Stop is not only Africa’s largest truck stop, but it is also its busiest. Many truck drivers passing along the N3 corridor make Highway Junction their preferred stopover.

The Highway Junction Truck Stop was started by Ben and Amanda Deysel in May 1998. Since 2015, Highway Junction is proud to have partnered with the Transport Sector Retirement Fund. Its facilities have recently been revamped and expanded to offer three forecourts, convenient and secure overnight parking facilities to our country’s trucking fraternity. “We aim to serve the transport community with quality accommodation-, warehousing-, trucking service centre (workshops)-, refueling-, healthy food-, primary healthcare and recreational facilities,” explained Ben Deysel, CEO of Highway Junction.

“It is the only truck stop of its kind and size on the continent with in excess of 1 500 vehicles passing through this facility daily.” It is for this reason that Hollard Insurance, and their co-sponsor the Transport Sector Retirement Fund, chose the Highway Junction Truck Stop as the ideal venue to promote the annual Hollard Highway Heroes competition to truckers last week. Searching for South Africa’s best truck driver – the Hollard Highway Heroes competition

For the first time since the inception of the competition in 2015, the Hollard Specialist Insurance Company, Hollard Trucking (this year) opened its Highway Heroes competition to all truck drivers in South Africa, affording the Transport Sector Retirement Fund and other partners the opportunity to come on board to recognise trucking excellence.

For the duration of the competition, the driving behaviour of entrants in the competition will be closely monitored by the Hollard Trucking Bureau through the utilisation of fleet tracking technology. Through careful monitoring, a pro-active driver-centric approach is followed to manage risk from speeding to fatigue, harsh braking patterns and other high-risk alarms to ultimately improve driver decision-making and actions.

Hollard and its partners are committed to help the transport sector move towards better futures. In this endeavour, we are convinced that initiatives such as the Hollard Highway Heroes competition will go a long way to encourage skills development and excellence in the industry, which in turn will bring about systemic change and improved safety standards, lowering individual risks and help to make our country’s roads safer for all.

“Every day, on the roads, our members carry the responsibility of not only keeping themselves safe, but to also safely transport the goods entrusted in their care, ensuring their employers’ assets are protected, and their fellow road users are considered. Our truckers keep the country’s economy moving forward and the Hollard Highway Heroes competition helps to recognise the key strategic role they fulfil,” said Mandla Nkosi, member of the TSRF board of trustees who also attended the activation at Highway Junction on Tuesday night.

“The awareness drive at Highway Junction was hugely successful with numerous entries into the competition being received on the night,” confirmed Nkosi. Entries into the Hollard Highway Heroes competition close on 31 May 2019. Thereafter drivers will be monitored until 31 July when the top 50 drivers will be chosen and monitored again for a further 45 days. The winner will be announced on 14 November 2019 and will walk away with R 100 000.00 in prize money.

“Together with the TSRF, we are proud to be associated with the Hollard Highway Heroes initiative to recognise South Africa’s best truck driver,” ended Deysel