Date: 09/12/2010
Source: The Department of Transport
Title: SA: Ndebele: Address by the Minister of Transport, at the Eastern Cape Road Safety Arrive Alive launch, Ngcobo

For a middle income developing country, South Africa experiences a notably high rate of road crashes and fatalities. We average 14 000 deaths every year. Approximately 1.3 million people die each year on the world’s roads. Between 20 and 50 million sustain non-fatal injuries. As far back as 1998, according to a UN report, road crashes already cost the South almost as much as all the aid they received.

Traffic accidents limit progress by killing and injuring the economically active, and were forecast to do more harm through death and disability than many other health threats given more attention.

Programme Director, these numbers reflect a loss of life that could have been avoided. These numbers reflect the loss of a bread winner, the loss of young and old, Black and White, who depart because of an unnecessary road accident. The 14000 who die in South Africa annually, the over 1000 who die in South Africa every month and the 1.3million who die globally on our roads are the reason we are here today, each and every one of them.

We owe our actions today and in future to the lives of everyone of the 14000 who are not with us when they could still be with us; the 14000 who are no more because of the road accidents that could and should have been avoided. For this reason, as we launch the Eastern Cape Arrive Alive Road Safety Campaign for 2010, we commit ourselves to promoting the “Make Roads Safe Campaign,” whose aim is to reduce road traffic fatalities.

A reduction in the number of road fatalities does not just happen because we wish it to happen. Road fatalities will only decrease once a significant number of road users are prepared to be part of this new movement for change. We must commit to a new movement that is anchored on changing current behaviour, and which seeks to create a new breed of road users. Road fatalities will be reduced once we all recognize the need to do something drastic, in order to put an end to the deaths which occur on a daily basis on our roads.

EASTERN CAPE INITIATIVES TO STOP ROAD CARNAGE

We have already taken bold steps towards this change of road culture and behaviour. In October this year, we were part of the Eastern Cape Roads Indaba. The Indaba, among others, cited improved road infrastructure networks as a necessity for the reduction of road accidents. In September, we were here to launch the Eastern Cape Road Safety Council.

In July, here in Ngcobo, we held a Provincial Prayer service for victims of road accidents. At the beginning of the 2010 October Transport Month, we conducted a road block in East London showing our commitment to the call for a “Decade of Action” to fight road carnage.

• Today’s launch of the Eastern Cape Arrive Alive Road Safety Campaign is part of “the Decade of Activism for Road Safety,” being driven by the United Nations.

• Today, we look forward to ten years from 2011 to 2020, during which me must intensify the reduction of road deaths.

In this regard, we are already engaged in several key activities as part of our intervention to reduce road traffic fatalities during the course of this year. These include:

• The launch of the new National Rolling Enforcement Plan in September in Gauteng.

• Hosting the National Traffic Summit in September in Gauteng.

• Launch of the 2010 Festive Season Make Roads Safe Campaign in the North West.

NEW NATIONAL ROLLING ENFORCEMENT PLAN

Nationally, we inaugurated the new National Rolling Enforcement Plan (NREP), which is a direct intervention to end the daily carnage on our road networks. Ladies and Gentlemen, on Tuesday (7 December 2010), 11 people were killed in a road crash involving a mini-bus taxi on the N4 near Olifantsriver in Mpumalanga. We convey our sincerest condolences to the families and relatives of all those who lost their lives in this horrific road crash. We also convey our condolences to all the families who lost their relatives and loved ones on our roads.

Ladies and Gentlemen, that we have a seemingly unending list of accidents on our roads that claim lives does not mean we must give up the fight. That we have people dying on our roads does not mean we must give up hope. Instead, every road death must increase our commitment to ending road deaths. We will not stop road deaths in one day. We will not stop road carnage in one week, or one month, not even in one year! We can make this guarantee, however, that we will reduce the carnage in our life time! We will do it!

• From 1 to 7 December 2010, more than 250 000 vehicles and drivers have been stopped and checked and thousands of fines issued for various traffic offences.

• During the past weekend alone (3 – 5 December 2010), more than 200 drunk drivers were arrested including 20 in the Western Cape, 93 in Gauteng, 30 in Limpopo, 44 in KwaZulu-Natal and 20 in the Eastern Cape.

• Other arrests included possession of dagga, overloaded taxis and buses, taxis and buses without the necessary permits as well as excessive speed.

• In the Free State, 219 vehicles were discontinued from use for being un-roadworthy.

• Over October and November more than two million vehicles and drivers have been stopped and checked. Over half a million fines were issued for various traffic offences. During October, more than 2 256 motorists were arrested for drinking and driving. Since the 2010 FIFA World Cup, an average of 2 000 motorists have been arrested every month for driving whilst under the influence of alcohol.

The NREP has had notable successes. To date, more than 2 million vehicles and drivers have been stopped and checked nationally.

• A target to stop and check 85 000 vehicles and drivers per month has been set in this province.

• As part of our plan to intensify law enforcement in this province, we will hand over 45 brand new vehicles to provincial Traffic Officers. This includes 18 Quantums, 26 sedans fitted with full traffic control accessories and a bakkie with a police van-type canopy to hold offenders.

In this province, one of the factors contributing to road accidents is stray animals. It is an issue also in the North West and Limpopo provinces and such places. We are pleased to announce a partnership between the Departments of Transport and Agriculture and the SPCA in providing necklaces that should be tied around animals’ necks so that they are visible to motorists at night.

Furthermore, over the festive season and beyond, special road traffic operations will be conducted nation-wide by various traffic authorities day and night. We will carry out inter-provincial corridor traffic law enforcement operations in the following areas:

• N1 (Joburg – Cape Town);

• N1 (Joburg – Polokwane)

• N4 (Pretoria – Nelspruit and Pretoria – Mafikeng);

• N3 (Joburg – Durban);

• N2 (Cape Town – Umtata);

• Regional corridors such as the K573 Moloto Road in Mpumalanga; and the

• R80 Soshanguve in Gauteng as well as other routes considered hazardous.

THE SOUTH AFRICAN CONTEXT

As we launch the province’s road safety campaign, it is important that we take note of the current challenges that should encourage us to reduce fatal road crashes.

These include:

• Vehicle crashes to the South African economy cost more than R56 billion a year.

• Traffic deaths and injuries undermine the Millennium Development Goals.

• We must halve road fatalities by 2014.

ROAD SAFETY ON A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

Internationally, many countries have shown sharp reductions in the number of crashes and casualties by:

• Enforcing laws governing speed limits, alcohol, seat-belts, child restraints and crash helmets.

• Implementing transport and land-use policies that promote fewer, shorter and safer trips; encouraging safer modes of travel such as public transport; incorporating injury-prevention measures into traffic management.

• Making vehicles safer for occupants, pedestrians and cyclists, and more vehicles using daytime running lights, high-mounted brake lights, reflective materials on cycles, carts, rickshaws and other non-motorized forms of transport.

The Global Status Report on Road Safety in Africa indicates that 62% of the reported road crashes occur in 10 countries. South Africa is one of them. In 2007, Ministers responsible for transport and health in Africa endorsed the call for international dialogue on road safety.

The Ministers from Africa called upon the G8 Summit, held in Germany in June 2007, to recognize the urgent need to improve road safety in Africa particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa.

As part of this growing movement, African countries, including ourselves, were at the first ever global United Nations Ministerial Conference on Road Safety held in Moscow last November. In Moscow, Ministers discussed how best to develop road safety national plans and targets, and how to implement over a decade, safe roads globally. In addition, Ministers approved the Moscow Declaration which calls for a Decade of Action for Road Safety, 2011 – 2020.

THE ‘MAKE ROADS SAFE’ CAMPAIGN

A number of States supported the UN resolution establishing the Decade of Action. Subsequently, the U.N. General Assembly in March this year proclaimed that 2011-2020 will be the ‘Decade of Action for Road Safety’. This will be under the theme of ‘Make Roads Safe,’ recognizing the tremendous global burden of fatalities and injuries resulting from road crashes each year.

Ladies and Gentlemen, as we wait for the dawn of 2011 we must pool our resources together nationally, provincially and at municipal level.

These accidents cost far too much. These accidents represent a cost we can least afford. But we know something infinitely more powerful in this war. We know something more enduring in this struggle.

We know that the power to stop these accidents and deaths lies squarely within our locus of control! We can overcome road death! We will overcome and we will end the road carnage!

I THANK YOU.