3 April 2002
"The Carnage on our roads has got to stop."
Saving Lives, Changing Minds
I want to express appreciation to all MEC’s (my colleagues) in the transport and traffic sector for their sterling efforts in promoting safety on South Africa’s roads during the Easter period 2002. I also thank law enforcement officers employed by our provincial and local government for their untiring efforts, and the many law abiding road users whose discipline and patience must not be taken for granted. I also ask for understanding for the inconveniences suffered by motorists during roadblocks all over the country.
Earlier this year, we as a nation stopped for a moment in shock to witness a single family stripped bare in sorrow as they mourned the death of 52 of their family members who were killed while travelling to their ancestral land in Mpumalanga. We see and we feel the pain of death and serious injury on our roads everyday.
But somehow we still don’t understand that road safety is not about other people. It is about every person who gets behind the wheel of a vehicle. It is about every passenger in every vehicle whether a minibus-taxi or a bakkie. And it is about every pedestrian on the side of the road. Road safety is us. It is about you and me and it is our individual responsibility.
Road safety is a simple matter of common sense. It is about good judgement and a mature and responsible attitude towards one’s fellow citizens. It is obvious that driving at 100 km/hour through a heavily built-up area is dangerous. It is also obvious that road conditions, poor visibility, bad weather, steep gradients, sharp bends, pedestrians on the road all play a huge part in determining what a safe speed really should be. It is obvious ladies and gentlemen; but how many of us close our eyes to the obvious and tell ourselves fairy stories based on the belief that we are somehow different - that ‘I don’t make mistakes; I’m in control; it can’t happen to me’.
The Carnage on our roads has got to stop. Last year, during Easter 2001, a total of 146 persons lost their lives in 113 crashes involving 139 vehicles. In comparison during Easter 2002, a total of 179 persons lost their lives in 150 crashes involving 193 vehicles. These figures indicate an increase of 33 in fatalities translating to a 22,6% increase in fatalities. The figures also indicate an increase of 37 (32,74 %) in the number of fatal crashes and an increase of 54 (38,85%) in the number of vehicles involved.
The highest number of crashes were again pedestrian related, a total of 52. The highest increase in type of crashes was vehicles overturning which increased by 13 (25 in Easter 2001 to 38 in Easter 2002). The second highest type of crashes for Easter 2002 was head on collisions, which increased by 11. The biggest decrease was sideswipe opposite direction, which decreased by 5 from a total of 6 in Easter 2001 to only 1 incident in 2002. In Easter 2001 pedestrians topped the list of crash types.
The highest fatality rate in 2002: 1,72 (the mean number of persons killed per crash) was for head?on collisions. The highest overall Provincial rate increase was Mpumalanga with an increase of 0.94 (93,75%) from 1,00 to 1,94. The biggest overall Provincial rate decrease was in Kwazulu Natal from 1,50 to 1,00 or 33,33%. The overall national rate decreased by 7,64% from 1,29 to 1,19.
The three major themes – unroadworthy vehicles, speeding and overloading – were the heart of our communication drive during this Easter. However, there was a continuous parallel focus throughout the campaign on educating pedestrians in safe road usage.
Similarly, the Arrive Alive Campaign each month in all the provinces will have its particular theme. Drivers can be sure that officers will certainly not be ignoring moving violations (going through red robots, dangerous overtaking, using cell phones while driving, seatbelt violations, etc.) and general vehicle and driver fitness.
Hand in hand with enforcement will go a concerted education and communication drive aimed at reaching all sectors of our community. This will be accompanied by rigorous monitoring of the campaign's results out on the road - statistics on numbers, locations and types of accidents, numbers of injuries and fatalities, numbers of arrests and prosecutions, changes in patterns of driver and pedestrian compliance with road regulations, etc. This will give us the experience and the hard data we will need to modify our future actions and mount increasingly effective and sophisticated campaigns over the years to come.
Arrive Alive is only the beginning of a long-term strategy to transform the situation on South Africa's roads. The long-term solutions required are complex. You all know that we recently launched the Road to Safety Strategy 2001-2005, which focuses on systemic problems in road safety. The Department together with our colleagues in provinces will concentrate on the following key projects:
As I conclude, let me remind you that Arrive Alive is aimed at all road users. You and me. School children and young (especially male) drivers; older drivers who have grown into bad habits; public service drivers in buses and taxis and in the long-distance road freight industry; and pedestrians everywhere, in both urban and rural South Africa.
If we have tough law enforcement, this is because experience shows that there is no other way of kick-starting a change of consciousness. But we go on from this to say that lasting change can only come from each one of us looking critically at our own ingrained attitudes. We need to recognise that the behaviour we joke about or think we can get away with may yet be what turns us into killers or corpses.
We are all engaged in a process of changing our own behaviour. National, provincial and local government’s aim in this short-term campaign was not simply to punish people. The aim was that people should not drive unroadworthy vehicles, that they should not speed and that they should not overload. This is part of the wider aim of beginning to fundamentally change people's attitudes. It will require a super-effort to rid our roads of lawlessness, but it will be worthwhile for all of us.
In the end, nation building will mean nothing if we don't engender a respect for life in our country. And we will have achieved nothing unless we learn to value our own life and the lives of our fellow citizens. The more we learn to do this, the more we will be contributing to the development of a mature civic culture which respects the values of compassion, care and responsibility and allows us, our families and loved ones, to achieve the simple goal of this campaign: ARRIVE ALIVE!
Issued by, Mike Mabasa
HEAD: Media Liaison and Corporate Communications
Tel: 083 680 7048
Telfax: 083 676 8450