Road safety council on cards

Public input was sought on the planned road safety council the City wants to establish, with suggestions made on how the carnage on the roads can be mitigated.
IF you put 150 people in a room together and ask how many of them have lost a loved one in a road accident, chances are that at least 100 of those people will say they have.

MMC Rehana Moosajee (Photo: Enoch Lehung, City of Johannesburg)MMC for transport Rehana Moosajee (Photo: Enoch Lehung, City of Johannesburg)This was what the portfolio head for transport, Rehana Moosajee, asked guests at a Transport Month conference about road safety on 25 October at Gold Reef City. Those present were asked to raise their hand if they had lost a loved one in a car crash, and about 95 percent of the audience put their hand up.

Moosajee and the City’s transport department hosted the conference to discuss setting up a road safety council as a means to help cut down the number of road accident fatalities. “You are here today because you care enough and sufficiently believe you have a role to play in ending the senseless loss of lives,” Moosajee said.

More than just reducing the fatalities, however, is the need for survivors’ stories to be told too. Serious problems such as head injuries and loss of speech and mobility are battles that individuals and their families have to endure as a result of road accidents.

“It can’t be that these stories are told in vain,” she said. “We need to be different by the time we leave this afternoon, and moved to action, not just talk.”

Safety
Linda Marais from Headway, an organisation that helps people who have suffered traumatic brain injury, spoke of safety measures: always wear a seatbelt; use appropriate child safety chairs; never drive under the influence of alcohol or other drugs; always wear a helmet on a bike or scooter; and never text or talk on your cellphone whole driving.

Linda MaraisBuckle up to avoid injury, says Linda Marais from HeadwayThese rules may seem obvious, but the fact that South Africa has one of the highest road accident fatality rates indicates that they are not yet entrenched in the population’s psyche. Eugene Herbert from Master Drive said: “About 50 percent of people who died in crashes could have been saved if they were wearing a seatbelt.”

According to Ashref Ismail from the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC), if we continue on the trajectory we are on, more people will be killed in road crashes by 2020 than from HIV and malaria combined.

“The time has come to say enough is enough,” he said. Dangerous behaviour on the road needed to be stopped, and the RTMC had put several initiatives in place to curb it. For instance, Ismail said, the corporation would be examining public transport and would also be targeting drunken driving through Operation DUI.

This operation was an arrangement that every law enforcement officer must arrest one drunkard per month. “You cannot tell me that each officer cannot find one dronkie in a month,” he said.

Other dangerous driving such as speeding, barrier line and red light infringements will also be targeted.

Safety council
To give these initiatives impetus, the City wants to set up a Joburg road safety council. People at the conference were asked to give their opinions on what they thought the functions of a safety council should be, as well as on what areas there should be a focus.

Safety on our roadsSafety on our roads“We were going to do a presentation on a proposal to launch a road safety council, but we rather want to hear stakeholders’ accounts of what action they think should be taken,” Moosajee added. “We don’t want it to be just another talk shop; we have enough of those already.”

Suggestions that were put forward included the setting up of a number, much like 10111, to report reckless and drunken driving. It was pointed out that such a number already existed; people could report bad driving to 0861 400 800. Further suggestions were made that this number needed to be advertised and publicised more as most people did not know that it existed.

Other ideas included a need for developers to start planning for pedestrians and not just for cars. Scholar patrols were pinpointed as a way of inculcating responsibility and awareness of good road behaviour. Widespread first aid training was also suggested as a way of lowering carnage.

Public transport
In terms of public transport, recommendations were that tracking devices and cameras be installed on all buses to ascertain that proper procedure was being followed and that drivers were following the rules of the road.

“No category of road user is immune to crashes,” Moosajee said. “This is why we want to get to the point where there is a commitment to the sanctity of human life.”

The conference was just one of the events that have formed part of the City’s activities during Transport Month, which is held in nationally each October.

Other activities that have taken place during the month include a fun walk, cycle or skateboard through the inner city on 2 October, the launch of non-motorised transport projects such as pavements and storm water drainage infrastructure on 3 October, a public transport race across Joburg on 7 October, and a clean-up of kerb inlets in Alexandra on 7 October.

A “know your city” tour with 100 minibus taxi and bus drivers will wrap up proceedings on 31 October.