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It is with disgust that Justice Project South Africa (JPSA) has noted the contents of the article which appears online at the IOL Motoring website and entitled ‘Cops not to blame for road deaths’.

Tshwane Metro Police Department head, Steven Ngobeni is clearly labouring under the same misconception that others who are not qualified to comment on the role of law enforcement in road safety do in his assertions that “The problem is not that there is a lack of law enforcement agents on the roads”.

JPSA wishes to refute these claims as being the utter rubbish that they are and to state that the exact opposite is true and it is a universally accepted fact that people will drive as badly as law enforcement authorities allow them to.

In South Africa, traffic law enforcement is regarded by Municipalities as being a source of revenue, not as being a constitutional mandate to enforce the law and save lives. This is evident not only from the assertions made by JMPD Chief Zwelibanzi Nyanda in the Public Protector’s report of December 2014 wherein he stated that “the revenue collected from traffic fines is a source of general income for the CoJ and that a lesser revenue received would result in charging rate taxpayers more in order to source its budget” but in the daily dearth of proper traffic law enforcement which takes place in every single jurisdiction in South Africa.

The enforcement of moving violations is almost completely ignored by traffic authorities in favour of using lazy, revenue-driven policing methodologies like speed cameras to drive their revenues. In the 2014/15 annual report of the Road Traffic Infringement Agency (RTIA), it was stated that 81.14% of all AARTO infringement notices issued by the four traffic law enforcement agencies who operate in Johannesburg and Tshwane were AARTO 03 infringement notices which are posted to alleged offenders.

The two biggest players in these jurisdictions are the Johannesburg and Tshwane Metropolitan Police Departments whose posted infringement notices, most of which were for disobeying the speed limit and constituted 88.24% (JMPD) and 55.42% (TMPD) of their so-called law enforcement efforts. Additionally, whilst AARTO 03 infringement notices issued by the JMPD during that monitoring period dropped by 18.71%, those issued by the TMPD increased by 82.29% over the previous year.

Mr Nogbeni’s further statement that “there was no formula for reducing road fatalities” is utter nonsense and further goes to prove that he is grossly misinformed about best practices which have been adopted and implemented throughout the world and which are based on the “four E’s of road safety”, namely Education, Engineering, Enforcement and Evaluation.

There is no “silver bullet” or magic formula which will achieve greater road safety in South Africa since it is a holistic science which cannot and will not function effectively in the absence of any of the four E’s.

We are however encouraged by the assertion that the TMPD will be concentrating its efforts on “hot spots” over the festive season but need to point out that it is illogical for anyone to think that you can allow people to behave as badly as they like year round and suddenly expect them to behave themselves over the festive season.

With respect to the incredibly unrealistic target of zero road fatalities over this festive season asserted by Tshwane Mayor, without being branded as naysayers, we would have to say that the chances of achieving this this are highly unlikely. It is also quite frightening that that the Mayor should be encouraging people to use public transport just two days after the horrific minibus taxi collision which claimed 24 lives on Sunday 29 November.

Justice Project South Africa wishes to encourage all traffic law enforcement authorities around the country to fulfil their constitutional mandate t and properly enforce traffic laws, not only during the festive season, but every single day and night of the year and to abandon their propensity to engage in the greedy practice of generating traffic fines revenue. Passing the buck and blaming everyone else simply will not achieve anything.

With respect to the attitudes and behaviour of all road users, we would further like to encourage them to abide by traffic laws and be vigilant of those who don’t. Defensive driving simply cannot be regarded as an optional requirement, but must be regarded as an essential tool in one’s own self-preservation and ensuring the safety of others.

Issued by Justice Project South Africa