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In order to deal head on with the high rate of road crashes and fatalities across all major roads in the province, the North West Department of Human Settlements, Public Safety and Liaison has increased the traffic visibility by recruiting 110 new traffic officers.

The newly appointed traffic law enforcement officers have been deployed to different traffic stations across the province. The recruitment follows the department’s intention to increase visibility in all provincial roads, and further to achieve the objectives of the Decade of Action for road safety which intends to reduce the death toll in South African roads.

The Departmental MEC, Nono Maloyi said the appointment of these officers would contribute immensely in the reduction of the most worrying road fatalities in the province. He said this year’s transport month would be completely different to the past years as law enforcement officers would be all over the roads to ensure compliance of motorists. “We all know that speeding contributes to road fatalities and we will ensure that our officers are all over the major roads of the province to guard against speeding, overloading, drunken driving and vehicle’s fitness for the road,” said Maloyi.

The department will further engage in serious joined operations throughout the October month leading to the annual festive Arrive Alive Campaign, which according to the MEC the department will show no mercy to offenders. “We will be joining forces with the members of the South African Police Service and other law enforcement agencies to realise this objective. “In that way we are certain that our roads will be safer and saving more lives,” he said.

The department will further establish traffic control centres in all entry roads of the province, which will also serve as multipurpose centres for other law enforcement agencies. During this major operations the department intends to stop and inspected about 60 000 vehicles every month until after the festive season. 

This year the department intends to achieve more reduction in road fatalities as compared to the last year festive season’s success where the province achieved a 2.3% reduction.

Road safety campaigns will also be conducted throughout the transport month and the festive season mostly targeting pedestrians and further cautioning motorists about fatigue.