Discovery Insure joins global leaders in landmark United Nations (UN) commitment to safer roads at UN Headquarters in New York

Jean Todt, UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Road Safety, said the pledges represented an important step in accelerating global action. “Today’s pledges are an important step forward, but we need serious action from all sectors to make safe roads the global standard, not the exception.”

For Discovery Insure, the pledge recognises more than 15 years of proving that behavioural science, data and telematics can change driver behaviour and ultimately save lives.

Discovery Insure has focused on reducing road fatalities by addressing one of its biggest underlying causes: human behaviour. “Road risk is not inevitable, but preventable. By combining behavioural science, technology and incentives, we can help people make safer choices and meaningfully reduce road crashes. We believe these learnings have value not only in South Africa, but globally.”

Turning behavioural science into safer roads

At the heart of Discovery Insure’s approach is its Shared-Value Insurance model, which applies behavioural science to encourage safer driving while creating better outcomes for individuals, businesses and society.

Through the Vitality Drive programme, Discovery Insure has built one of the largest driving behaviour datasets in Africa, analysing more than 20 billion kilometres of driving data to better understand what causes road risk and, more importantly, what reduces it.

Most recently, Discovery Insure conducted one of the largest real-world studies of the relationship between sleep and driving, linking four years of sleep data from more than 10,000 drivers with their driving behaviour and accident outcomes. The research found that missing sleep over several consecutive nights is one of the strongest predictors of accident risk, with sleep proving to be five times more predictive of crashes than demographic or credit factors in isolation. The findings led to the launch of Vitality Drive Sleep Points, the world’s first motor insurance rewards programme to incentivise healthy sleep to reduce accident risk.

The Vitality Drive programme has consistently demonstrated that changing behaviour delivers measurable improvements in road safety. Clients reduce their accident risk by 15% within the first month of joining the programme and experience a 57% lower road fatality rate than the South African average. Discovery Insure’s safest drivers experience almost 50% fewer accidents and close to 40% lower accident severity than average drivers.

In 2021, the award-winning programme was extended globally, including Canada and the Middle East. “Through Vitality Drive International, we’re working with insurance partners to adapt our proven behaviour-change model for local markets around the world. It’s an opportunity to share what we’ve learned in South Africa and contribute to creating safer drivers and safer roads globally.”

Creating safer roads beyond our own clients

Discovery Insure applies the same principles beyond its own client base. Through Discovery Pothole Patrol, Discovery Insure’s partnership with the Johannesburg Roads Agency and Avis Southern Africa, more than 340,000 potholes have been repaired since 2021, making Johannesburg’s roads safer to drive.

The Discovery Safe Journeys to School programme is helping protect some of South Africa’s most vulnerable road users – children – by supporting almost 1,000 scholar transport operators across Gauteng and the Western Cape, safely transporting more than 28,000 learners every day. In 2025, drivers in the programme achieved an 81% safe driving record and, remarkably, there have been no fatalities among participating transport operators since the programme launched in 2014.

Partnering to accelerate global progress

Discovery Insure has long supported the United Nations road safety movement, including partnering on the global Streets for Life campaign in South Africa in 2024. Its pledge to the UN Road Safety Fund marks the next chapter in that relationship, moving beyond awareness campaigns to sharing South African innovation, expertise and evidence-based approaches to improving road safety globally.

Attwell says Discovery Insure’s purpose of creating a nation of great drivers aligns naturally with the United Nations’ ambition to create safer roads worldwide. “Road safety has traditionally focused on vehicles and infrastructure. Those remain critical, but our experience and research show that understanding human behaviour may be the biggest opportunity we have to save lives. Whether it’s encouraging better driving, understanding the impact of fatigue, or improving road conditions through programmes such as Pothole Patrol, our purpose is the same: using science, data and innovation to make roads safer.”

As part of its pledge, Discovery Insure committed to continuing its investment in the science of behaviour change, advancing the use of telematics, data analytics and incentive design to improve road safety outcomes, expanding programmes and partnerships that reduce road risk, and collaborating with governments, multilateral organisations, civil society and the private sector to accelerate progress towards the goals of the Decade of Action for Road Safety.

Nneka Henry, Head of the UN Road Safety Fund, said meaningful progress in road safety depends on collaboration.

“The pledges are proof of what we've long known: this partnership is greater than the sum of its parts. When governments, UN entities, the private sector and civil society align behind a shared framework, we reach further than any single actor could alone.”