Healthy drivers are safe drivers

This year Drive Me Challenge and North Star Alliance (North Star) will work side-by-side to create awareness about the importance of driver health. 

 

When it comes to safe driving, good driver health is of vital importance. A driver who is not healthy, particularly one who must drive long distances, can easily commit fatal driving errors, causing injury to himself or herself and others on the road.

 

Drive Me and North Star would like to create awareness among TNT’s employed and subcontracted drivers about the importance of driver health, including prevention of disease and the key factors to healthy living.

 

Established by TNT and the World Food Programme in 2006, North Star is a public-private partnership that works at the crossroads of health and mobility. Its mission is to provide sustainable access to quality health and safety services to mobile workers, such as truck drivers, and related communities. 

 

North Star harnesses the energies of almost 70 public, private and social partners to stop the spread of disease by establishing a network of strategically located clinics, called Roadside Wellness Centres. The centres are located at critical hotspots along Africa’s transport corridor, such as border posts, transit towns or ports, where large numbers of trucks stop. Today, North Star has 25 centres in 10 countries in East and Southern Africa. 

 

North Star’s services include screening and treatment of STIs (sexually transmitted infections) and malaria, HIV counselling and testing, and treatment of mobility-related illnesses like hypertension, diabetes and obesity. Local behaviour change specialists also share health and road safety information.

 

A driver who maintains a physically active and healthy lifestyle and schedules regular medical check-ups runs a significantly lower risk of contracting a disease or illness. Knowledge and prevention are, therefore, the keys to driver health and safety. 

 

North Star and its 40-foot model Roadside Wellness Centre will be present during the final Drive Me Challenge in October. The not-for-profit will share information about its efforts to safeguard driver health, and will also test the knowledge of Drive Me participants on this important topic. It will be an ideal opportunity to raise awareness about driver well being.

 

You can read more about North Star Alliance and its mission at: