10 January 2013

Promoting Road Safety - A New Paradigm Needed

Submitted by: Tobie Ueckermann

Worldwide the efforts towards addressing road safety are classified into the "three Es". Engineering for safer roads, Enforcement of the rules of the road, and Education of the road user towards better and safer driving habits.

For many years, in South Africa accent has been placed on the "Education" approach. However once again the year-end holiday season has come and gone- with no success in the hoped for reduction in the crash rates and deaths on our country's roads. In fact this year's record appears likely to be the worst for the past 5 years, and also follows the pattern of many years of no significant improvement.

Apart from the personal tragic and emotional effect of these crashes and deaths, they cost the country tens of billions of Rand per annum. The Minister of Transport has, according to media reports called for "drastic interventions and a complete mind shift on behalf of those who use our roads" and towards this end will shortly" unveil a new road safety partnership that will seek a common national approach against road carnage".
However merely asking the offenders to change their mindset will not be successful – they need to be forced to do so.

The South African Road Federation (SARF) looks forward to the Minister's pronouncement in the hope that he will significantly increase efforts towards a greater accent on enforcement of the "rules of the road" towards safer travel on our roads and reverse the downward trend in road safety over the recent past years. Towards this end SARF suggests that a whole new paradigm towards addressing road safety is needed and has being saying this for some time. At the heart of the problem is the complete disregard many people have for the tenets of good driving behaviour, despite continued attempts by the authorities to educate the public in this regard.
According to Ashref Ishmail, spokesman for the RTMC the main cause for the crashes are persons driving under the influence of liquor and overtaking on solid white lines in the face of oncoming traffic. Added to this is the fact that a reported 38% of people killed are pedestrians.

This points to a complete disregard of the enforcement activities of the authorities, the Traffic Police, by a large number of the South African population. Many people are not sufficiently frightened at the possibility of being caught and the consequences thereof. This is in stark contrast to countries such as the USA where the average motorist nearly has a heart attack when he sees a blue lighted vehicle behind him or her, with its sirens wailing, indicating that he or she should stop. For whatever reason many people are not afraid of the traffic police. We need to make people scared of committing a traffic offence, and not be satisfied with the current situation where some people boast about how fast they travel and how they can drive safely after a few drinks. Society has become uncaring about road safety and only when it hits close to home do they consciously change their behaviour.

The paradigm we need to adopt is that of making people scared of committing traffic offences through a greater road presence of the police followed by swift and severe penalties. Whilst some attempt is being made to do this, SARF considers that not enough is being done in this regard. Decisive action, and a tough and consistent enforcement of the traffic laws, rather than more plans, is needed to ensure that more, if not most offenders are apprehended.

SARF joins in the general calls on the authorities to step up their efforts in this regard. Political leadership is of the essence here. Additionally road safety audits need to be carried out on all heavily trafficked roads in the country to ensure "accident hot spots" are identified and addressed through sound engineering activities. 

Enquiries

Dr. Malcolm Mitchell
For South African Roads Federation (SARF)
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Cell: 083 460 0353