Pothole Patrol - Driving change on South African roads

Discovery Insure, in partnership with Dialdirect and the City of Johannesburg, has launched the Pothole Patrol which manages and repairs potholes across Johannesburg. For Discovery Insure, this unique data-driven initiative is aligned with the business's core purpose of enhancing and protecting people's lives.

Pothole Patrol - the joint partnership that's making a difference

Since the initiative began in May 2021, the Pothole Patrol has repaired over 50 000 potholes.

Ultimately, this effort boils down to making more of our roads safer to use, more often - one pothole repair at a time. By sufficiently fixing road infrastructure in this way, this joint partnership will effectively contribute to reducing the severity and prevalence of road accidents that occur as a result of potholes. For insured and uninsured road users alike, the Pothole Patrol team has started making significant inroads with repair work.

"We're proud to support the Joburg Roads Agency with this important initiative. We have no doubt that it will make our roads safer for everyone," says Discovery Insure Chief Executive Officer, Anton Ossip.

"Since the launch of Discovery Insure 10 years ago, we've endeavoured to push the limits and do things differently. We wanted to make people safer; we wanted to be more proactive about risk rather than reactive; and we wanted to share value with the broader society, as part of our ambition to positively impact the lives of people with whom we share our country's roads," he adds.

"We all know just how damaging, and even dangerous, potholes can be for road users. As a business, the collective impact of this hits close to home - and we're always on the lookout for ways we can make a positive difference through initiatives that align with our core purpose of enhancing and protecting lives. Through shared-value, repairing potholes is just one way we can make a difference," Ossip explains further.

Report your pothole today!

You can help us make that positive difference go even further with the Pothole Patrol App and WhatsApp Bot.

Ultimately, our ability to repair potholes depends on being able to identify their exact locations. Although our unrivalled telematics data does enable us to locate potholes quite accurately via our clients, we can reach countless more road defects with invaluable community input. All residents and road users of Johannesburg can now report a pothole using one of two digital channels:

1. Download the Pothole Patrol App - the app is available on the IOS app store and Google Play. Once downloaded, follow the registration prompts and you're all set to report potholes as you come across them on the roads.
2. Whatsapp "Hi" to 084 -POTHOLE (084 768 4653) and follow the prompts.