On 1 October 2026, I completed two years as the AA’s chief executive.
When I joined, I told the board what I wanted to see. You know the newspaper posters that go up on lamp posts on a Saturday night? I wanted one to read: ‘Ramagwede puts the AA back on the map.’
I think we have earned that headline. But a report card that lists only the wins isn’t worth your time, so this one also covers what I haven’t done well enough.
I am writing it to you because your membership paid for every part of it.
We stopped asking politely
For close to a decade, the AA sent press releases about unsafe cars into the ether and hoped someone would react. Manufacturers and regulators read them. Very little changed.
So we changed the approach. I became the spokesperson, and we started taking problems directly to manufacturers and regulators, publicly.
My opening line to every manufacturer is the same: I am happy to work with you. I want to work with you. But understand that I am here on behalf of a consumer who does not know I exist.
Once a company has to defend its position in public, things start to move.
The big changes
The clearest result came this September. In May, Global NCAP crash tests run through our #SaferCarsForAfrica campaign gave the Toyota Starlet zero stars for adult occupant protection. We kept saying so in public. Toyota made six airbags standard, and the retested car scored four stars.
The same campaign has published independent ratings for some of the country’s most popular entry-level cars, so buyers can see what they are paying for before they commit. Several scored one or two stars. Avis has since removed every vehicle we deemed unsafe from its rental fleet.
After nearly a decade of AA campaigning, the National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications (NRCS) has gazetted draft standards that would raise the minimum on new cars to four airbags, two of them curtain airbags for side impact. And when Jetour raised the payload rating of its T1 and T2 from 300kg to 475kg with no mechanical changes, we questioned it. The NRCS ran local weighbridge tests with our team present. One variant fell 20kg short of the claimed capacity.
The work does not stop at the car. My tagline comes to life here, “If it moves, it concerns me”.
We have argued against every increase in the fuel levy, and for an immediate R3 cut and a rethink of the Road Accident Fund levy. After petrol sold on the Garden Route lifted the paint off motorists’ cars, we pushed for our fuel standard to test for N-methylaniline, an additive banned in Europe, China and Russia. When Johannesburg forfeited a R313 million grant for its Rea Vaya bus system, we said so publicly. People who take the bus are mobility consumers too.
And when the bodies of 12 women were found around Kempton Park and Olifantsfontein, we opened the armed response our own employees use to women across South Africa, free for 30 days. It is not a solution. It was something we had and could give away.
We’re already getting stories of the lives we have changed. This is one of the stories. All identifying information has been removed: “A woman was assaulted by her husband and mother-in-law in front of her children and was bleeding from a head injury. The controller got the response partner moving (7 minutes out), stayed on SAPS until the van arrived, and kept the case going all evening. Her husband was arrested and taken to the police station.”
What changed inside the AA
In June 2025, the AA was certified a Top Employer in South Africa. In October that year, we rebranded a 95-year-old organisation and restructured membership around a service you can manage from your phone.
When I arrived, several departments had gaps. Rather than hire blindly and hope, I learnt each discipline well enough to manage the people I hired, starting with marketing, a subject I loathed at university. We now have a head of marketing and a function built to outlast me.
We opened our doors, too. We lend spare office space, at no cost, to motoring publishers and editors, and the Top Gear South Africa team now works from our building.
In September, we launched AA Talks, a video and podcast series that explains warranties, electric vehicles, road rules and personal safety in plain language.
Where I have fallen short
Most South Africans still think of the AA as the number you call when the car will not start. Roadside assistance matters, but it is a member benefit, not the mission. Whole generations have lost touch with what else we do.
That is on me. If I could rerun the past two years, I would move faster and apologise less.
People once joined the AA for its cause, not only for help at the side of the road. Somewhere along the way, we narrowed ourselves to roadside assistance and left the fight to others. The fight was always our core business.
Outlook for year three
Changing how a country sees an institution usually takes years. I do not have years, so year three has one job: make that cause impossible to miss.
Mobility is not transport. It is the freedom to change your circumstances.
To our members: your membership is not a breakdown policy. It is a seat in the argument about how this country moves.
Every month, more people write to tell me this must be a thankless job. It is not. But I would rather hear what you want us to fight for next. Tell me, and hold me to it.
My measure is simple. I want to leave this place better than I found it.