by the Minister of Transport MAC MAHARAJ
23 November 1998 at JIA
Thank you for attending the launch of the third phase of ARRIVE ALIVE: our main road safety campaign of the year.
I would like to thank Engen for offering their new Skystop as the venue to launch ARRIVE ALIVE Three.
There is a good synergy in this event as I am the shareholding minister for the Airports Company and the Skystop adds both services and value to Johannesburg International Airport.
We appreciate your support of all of you here for ARRIVE ALIVE because as more people become aware of the problems of road safety in our country, we can start to turn the tide on what can only be described as a national tragedy in this country.
As I have said before: the story of road safety is not the horrific figures my Department produces - the almost 10,000 deaths, the 50,000 serious injuries and the more than 150,000 injuries on our roads every year.
At the end of the day, these are just figures. The real story is the sadness we all carry for the people we have loved and will never see again as their lives were cut short on our roads, or will be in wheelchairs or lie comatose in a hospital bed for the rest of their life.
I don’t think there’s a person in Gauteng who was not moved by the story of five-year-old Tamika Jansen van Rensburg who walked five kilometres in the dark in her bridesmaid dress looking for help after her mother was killed instantly when their car left the road outside Pretoria and crashed.
Earlier this year, we as a nation stopped for a moment in shock to witness a community in Newcastle stripped bare in sorrow as they mourned the death of more than 32 of their children who were killed while travelling to school in a bus.
We see and we feel the pain of death and serious injury on our roads; but somehow we don’t understand that road safety is not about other people: it’s about every person who gets behind the wheel of a vehicle, it’s about every passenger and every pedestrian on the side of the road.
And that’s why ARRIVE ALIVE is so important. It focuses attention of the country on road safety and targets traffic law enforcement activities on the major killers on our roads.
We could have chosen to comprehensively cover the more than 95 causes of crashes, but with our limited resources we had to target the main causes so that we could make a difference.
And those causes, ladies and gentlemen, are drinking and driving and speeding.
In the past ARRIVE ALIVE campaign we have had success in raising public awareness of the dangers of drinking and then driving on our roads; and I think anyone found guilty of that offence will find very little public sympathy with their plight.
This year we expect this awareness to rise even further as our traffic officers will, for the first time, be equipped with the evidentary breathalyser, the results of which is now accepted as evidence in court.
ARRIVE ALIVE has invested in evidentary breathalysers and screeners in our provinces as well as the means to transport them. This equipment is highly mobile, allowing the traffic officers to set up roadblocks more easily and quickly.
The acceptance of the breathalyser after a three-year battle is significant to our law enforcement activities on the roads.
We will no longer have to get medical officers to work at roadblocks to take blood to be tested and then wait literally months for the results of the tests.
We will now be able to lock up the drunken driver there and then and get them off the road.
I must therefore put out a word of caution to all drivers who get in their cars with a breath-alcohol level that exceeds the legal limit of 0,38: you will be locked up immediately and charged and tried for a criminal offence. Once you are found guilty you will have a criminal record.
The gaps in our legal system are closing for you.
The second focus of ARRIVE ALIVE is on an area that is a greater challenge to us as we have to change the mindset of our drivers: that is speeding.
Most of our drivers are under the illusion that they are not the problem on our roads; it’s the other drivers, it’s the minibus taxis, it’s anyone else except themself.
I have news for you: if you break the law by exceeding the speed limit you put yourself and other people on the road in danger ... you are the problem.
ARRIVE ALIVE’s focus on speeding has caused much debate in motoring circles as they want us to say that the wrong speed for the circumstances is the problem and not speeding itself.
Of course the wrong speed for the circumstances is a major cause of crashes because we all know that factors such as weather do not cause crashes. Bad driving causes accidents.
But we cannot allow drivers to arbitrarily set their speed in terms of how they perceive their own driving ability, the capacity of their cars and their understanding of the conditions on the roads. That would lead to anarchy on our roads.
The Department of Transport recently commissioned a comprehensive study of South Africa’s speed limits and found that they were realistic and in line with world practice.
ARRIVE ALIVE says "Don’t fool yourself, speed kills" because we know from all the accident statistic and reports we have collected and studied that the speed of the vehicle determines to a large extent the outcome of the crash.
That is why I am pleased to welcome to today’s launch one of the trauma experts in our country, Dr Ken Boffard.
We have invited him here today to speak on what affects the impact or force of a crash on the persons involved.
He is among the hundreds of health workers in our country that work for literally hours trying desperately to save lives in the mangled wrecks that litter our roads. Dr Ken Boffard.
[Boffard speaks]
Thank you Dr Boffard.
The success we have had to date with ARRIVE ALIVE has been the result of the partnerships we have been building.
We have been heartened by the support we have been given from the media and look forward to work closely with you again to get the message of road safety through to our people.
In the health sector, we have started to work more closely with the Blood Transfusion Services. We appreciate the support you have given us and we will help you in any way possible as you play a vital role in saving lives. I would also like to thank the MRI, Netcare and Europassistance. We appreciate the difficult work you do along with other road side assistance and ambulance and fire services.
In the road fraternity I would like to thank Motor Industries Federation, Hyundai, the AA, Travelphone and especially the National Roads Agency which is always willing to provide information to road users and allow its infrastructure to be used for road safety.
I would also like to thank Phillips and Vodacom for putting resources in to this campaign and getting the message out.
This year we have extended our partnership to the oil industry and I would like to thank Shell, Caltex and especially Engen for their support. I hope that we can build on this relationship in the coming year.
The other partnership we have started to build is with the liquor industry. I have been heartened by their responsible response to the problem of drinking and driving on our roads.
In particular I would like to thank South African Breweries who have lived up to their image of corporate responsibility by investing in a R4,2 million campaign that carries the logo of ARRIVE ALIVE as well as donating more than R1 million to our campaign. Thank you.
Last, but certainly not least, is our heartfelt thanks for the Road Accident Fund which has invested 2,5% of their annual income, approximately R44 million, in the third phase of ARRIVE ALIVE.
While a reduction in crashes on our roads is in the interests of the Fund, they have given us the support and encouragement without which ARRIVE ALIVE would never have happened.
You have made an investment that has touched the lives of millions of South Africans. Thank you.
Of the total of about R44 million for ARRIVE ALIVE THREE, the lion’s share R26,85 million (61%) will go to law-enforcement.
And this is where it should be as the force of ARRIVE ALIVE is the traffic officer on the road. We will spend about R8,1 million on overtime to ensure adequate enforcement at night and over weekends and R15,18 million has been earmarked to buy and maintain law-enforcement equipment.
To assist drinking and driving checkpoints, trailers carrying roadblock signs, cones and lighting for night operations will be acquired as well as small screening devices and the evidentiary breath alcohol equipment. Certain provinces will also acquire "booze buses".
Mainly four types of speed checking devices will be purchased to enforce the speeding part of ARRIVE ALIVE:
the Speed camera, allowing uninterrupted safe traffic flow with notices send through the post later;
hand-held or tripod mounted radar and laser pointing devices which allow for motorists to be stopped and fined on the spot;
and vehicle mounted, movable devices which allow for speed (as well as certain other offences) to be checked and recorded in marked or unmarked vehicles while following an offender’s vehicle.
The rest of the budget has been earmarked for administrative support, monitoring, evaluation and reporting so that we can improve our statistics and so improve our planning; and for national education and communication (including TV and radio advertising, posters etc).
In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, the success of this campaign rests with the road traffic fraternity.
I would like to thank them for their support in the past and the effort that they have put in to ARRIVE ALIVE. I think the public should be aware that the ARRIVE ALIVE campaign employs no full-time workers.
It’s a campaign that comes together on all three levels of government - national, provincial and local - through extra hard work by the road traffic fraternity above and beyond the jobs they are employed to do. I would like to thank you.
I would also like to thank my colleagues in government, the MECs of Transport in the provinces, for their tirelessly support for ARRIVE ALIVE. I am pleased that so many of you could be here today for our national launch and would like to ask you to step forward to sign the agreement for ARRIVE ALIVE 3.
Issued by Didi Moyle: PA and Media Liaison Officer to the Minister of Transport
Didi Moyle
PA and Media Liaison Officer to the Minister of Transport
Pretoria: (012) 309 3131 (phone) or (012) 328 3194 (fax)
Cape Town: (021) 457260 (phone) or (021) 461 6845 (fax)
email: moyle@ mweb.co.za or moyled@ndot.pwv.gov.za (Pretoria only)
cell: 082 808 5108