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COSATU: Ntai Norman Mampane on the death of Mbulaeni Mulaudzi in a car crash

COSATU: Ntai Norman Mampane on the death of Mbulaeni Mulaudzi in a car crash

29th October 2014

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/ MEDIA STATEMENT / The content on this page is not written by Polity.org.za, but is supplied by third parties. This content does not constitute news reporting by Polity.org.za.

COSATU mourns the death of 34 year champion 800m runner Mbulaeni Mulaudzi in a car crash.
Mulaudzi, a young man with still so much to offer on and off the athletics track, died when the car he was driving overturned on the R555 in Mpumalanga on Friday 24th October.
COSATU extends its condolences to the Mulaudzi family and the athletics community in their tragic loss.
In remembering Mulaudzi and his triumphs on the athletics track, COSATU rededicates itself to the fight against road carnage in our country. In so doing we are not pre-empting any findings on the cause of the crash that killed Mulaudzi, but we wish that his death should not be in vain, and that our nation stands up to eliminate death on our roads.
Over 13,000 people continue to die on our roads every year, with at least double that number permanently injured or disabled.

40% of all road fatalities are pedestrians. During our most recent Festive Season a staggering 1376 people died on our roads between the 1st December 2013 and 7th January 2014.
COSATU has noted that the World Health Organisation has identified five key risk factors in road transport, over and above actual driving habits.
They are speed, drunk driving, not wearing a helmet when driving a motorbike, not using seat-belts, and not using child restraints.

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Our record on all these risk factors is shocking. A 2004 study on speed conducted by the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) revealed that 30.4 % of all drivers on motorways exceed the 120km per hour speed limit at any one time, 14.1% exceed 130km per hour limit, and 5.91% exceed 140km per hour.

A 2006 RTMC study on drunk driving and deaths on the road revealed that 51% of all drivers who were killed and later tested for their blood alcohol content by the Medical Research Council had exceeded the legal blood alcohol limit.
Alarmingly between the hours of 18.00 and 24.00 4% of all drivers of light motor vehicles were found to be over the limit. A drunk driver or drunk pedestrian is killed every two hours.

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Add risky driving to these five key risks, and we have a cocktail that creates unwarranted death on our roads.
For example, the RTMC reported that in 2006 31% of all road deaths were overtaking related, 7.2% were related to a failure to stop or yield, and 7% were related to poor visibility or too short a following distance.

Our big question as COSATU however, is where is the mass road safety education on television, on billboards, in the print media, and in our schools and places of adult learning?
Why is this carnage which accounts for 1% of all deaths (the same percentage as assault) not getting the attention that it deserves?

And where is the mass enforcement of road traffic regulations including the wearing of seatbelts and keeping within the speed limit?

We urge the Minister of Transport to do the following in the name of Malaudzi :- to urgently revamp the Arrive Alive Campaign; to resuscitate the RTMC so that it starts producing statistical reports again which can be used in developing road safety strategies (the last report was published in 2007 and covered 2006); and to work with the law enforcement agencies to step up enforcement of traffic regulations.
For our part, we commit the Federation to taking road safety education into our structures.
But for this to succeed we need the support and input of the relevant government agencies.

We will do this in remembrance of Mbulaeni Mulaudzi and all the other thousands who have died on our roads.
- See more at: http://www.cosatu.org.za/show.php?ID=9697#sthash.B2t2PGjX.dpuf

 

Issued by COSATU

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