Across distances where no detail can be missed, responsible movement defines true partners. The 2025 Hollard Highway Heroes Awards sets out to honour drivers who make safety their top priority. These awards stand as one of South Africa’s most respected benchmarks of professional driving excellence by critically monitoring driver behaviour and performance over a six-week period.
This year, Unitrans once again demonstrated its leadership in safety and performance on the road. From a pool of more than 13,000 professional drivers nationwide, seven Unitrans drivers ranked among the Top 10 finalists across both truck and bus categories – a remarkable achievement that highlights the depth of talent and discipline within our organisation.
In a dominant showing for the bus division, three Unitrans / Mega Bus bus drivers walked away as category winners, with one of those drivers earning the Overall Bus Category Winner title.
Meet the 2025 Highway Heroes: Driving Excellence, Setting New Standards
Overall Bus Category Winner & Short Haul Bus Driver Winner – Lesedi Masiteng, Mega Bus Kloof
Lesedi delivered a standout performance this year, securing two major national titles and firmly establishing himself as one of the top bus drivers in South Africa.
His dual victories in both the Overall Bus and Short Haul Bus categories speak to exceptional situational awareness, defensive driving and a meticulous commitment to safety.
Long Haul Bus Driver Winner – Gobatlamang Gabonese, Mega Bus Kuruman
Long-haul routes test endurance, judgement and consistency over hundreds of kilometres. Gobatlamang excelled in all three. Gobatlamang could easily be referred to as “Mr. Consistency” after making the Top 10 in this category for three years running and also having won the Overall Bus Driver award in 2023.
His recognition as the Long Haul Bus Driver Winner reflects the high standards our drivers uphold when transporting passengers safely across long distances and complex road conditions.
Top Female Bus Driver – Tshegofatso Grace Botswe, Mega Bus Kuruman
Tshegofatso’s award is a powerful marker of progress within the industry. As the Top Female Bus Driver in South Africa, she embodies discipline, mastery and composure qualities that continue to inspire more women to join and excel in the transport sector. Her achievement reinforces that excellence on the road knows no gender, only dedication and skill.
A National Result That Reflects an Industry Standard
The Highway Heroes programme is not only an awards platform – it’s a measurement of how drivers respond to real-world conditions, real risk and real responsibility. Each finalist’s driving behaviour and performance is tracked and monitored over a six-week period through an independent party’s tracking technology. After this period, the data is analysed independently to select the winner in each category.
Scoring is based on:
- Harsh braking and acceleration
- Fatigue risk and night-driving behaviour
- Speeding events and compliance
- Defensive driving and consistency
- GPS-verified data over thousands of kilometres
For Unitrans, having seven drivers place among the national top 20 signals a deeper truth: our operational culture consistently produces high-performance professionals who raise the standard across the entire industry.
Excellence That Drives the Industry Forward
Our drivers are not only competing, they are setting the benchmark for what safe, future-focused transport should look like in South Africa. These achievements strengthen trust with our partners, reinforce our operational credibility and demonstrate how disciplined driving contributes to safer communities, better passenger experiences and stronger transport networks nationwide.
We celebrate every driver who stepped into the competition, every finalist who represented us among the best in the country, and every winner who showed that excellence is a journey, not a moment. Their achievements are helping move South African passengers forward, connecting them to opportunities, to family, one safe kilometre at a time.