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Past Issues

June 2005

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The annual 'Legislation Workshop' run by Alta Swanepoel took place last month in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg. FleetWatch correspondent Dave Scott attended the Gauteng day and came away with the clear feeling that the Department of Transport is nowhere near to keeping up with the needs of the South Africa transport system.

It's clear from Alta Swanepoel's recent '2005 Legislation Workshop' that the Government - and the DoT in particular - are failing the SA road transport system. The DoT is perceived to be designing complex laws without the will to implement or enforce. The turnover of Ministers of Transport, Directors General, Provincial Transport MEC's and DoT staff are all compounding the problem, as what is the favourite subject of one Minister is not necessarily that of his successor. As stated at the workshop, "different politicians feel differently about matters initiated by their predecessors". There's just no continuity or follow-through - and it's worsening every year.
 

The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) is a prime example. The RTMC Act of 1999 was designed to get uniform road law enforcement through nine transport MEC's who really do not want to relinquish power. Here we are, in 2005, still fiddling while people are being paid massive salaries to do nothing in a transport Tower of Babel. Apparently the RTMC has to move to its own building - a process that takes bureaucratic years to happen.

Someone must be held accountable for the ever-deteriorating state of our roads - especially routes that are not tolled - and the on-going road carnage that makes the war in Iraq look almost peaceful. Without trying to be boring, here are current accepted stats that the DoT should bear in mind: 

• 12 000 deaths per annum on our roads, 40% of which are pedestrians. In fact, the total is much higher, at least up to 15 000. Many die a couple of weeks later in bed and not on the roadside battlefield.

• More than 60 000 serious injuries - its probably many more. Imagine what this is doing to clog our hospital beds that need space for AIDS patients.

• 500 000 collisions and growing. 

• Annual total cost to the economy of R35-billion - more than R95-million per day.

The problem at the moment is that our current economic growth is serving to mask the harsh truth. Everyone is in a low-inflation comfort zone. They are all watching new vehicle sales and not the smash-ups in the backyard. I know that the body shops aren't complaining as they roll in the cash and pollute the environment with wasteful by-products that go with spiralling accident repairs.

Back to basics - vehicle plating
Inaccurate, absent or false manufacturers' plating heightens confusion at weighbridges. In one fleet of 16 trucks, Swanepoel reported that every vehicle plate differed. Plating is the most basic trucking need - what can the vehicle legally carry? What are the manufacturer's design parameters? It appears that new vehicles are delivered with inaccurate plating and that data plates are not even checked during vehicle services. 

The lack of vehicle plating knowledge among truck sales people is abysmal and it follows that sellers and owners, who don't care or know what trucking capability is all about, will let vehicle plating slide into chaos.

Fear the assessors - not the cops
Visitors to South Africa are amazed at the lack of visible law enforcement on the roads. Our habitual overloaders and taxi-drivers just love this state of affairs. The only problem is that insurers hate it, so assessors enforce the 'little print' to the full-stop. And you can't blame them. 

Ignorance of the law is no excuse in an insurance policy - even if this was not the intention and everything was done in the spirit of 'well-meaning'. A prime example is unintentionally changing vehicle definition by modifying its cargo body into a cargo-cum-people carrier. Staff may only be transported without reward under certain conditions and in order to be 'nice' to staff, a truck body is sometimes substantially altered to allow for seats, canopy and windows on top of the cargo deck. This will infringe the vehicle definition and contravene the Regulations for free staff transport in a truck. Furthermore, staff may not be transported home from their workplace in an open truck as this contravenes the definition of reward. It's all in the definitions that must be the first items to be observed.

Be warned: You can modify your truck and drop staff off at home in the spirit of the 'new' South Africa but this could well see you ending up with a massive liability that sinks your business!

It's time for a 'Minister of Road Safety'
South Africa's motoring journalists have asked President Thabo Mbeki to appoint a Minister for Road Safety. In a letter delivered to the Office of the President, the SA Guild of South African Journalists' Committee for Active Road Safety (CARS), says that every day, hundreds and thousands of pedestrians, motorists and taxi commuters have their lives under threat, largely from unnecessary dangers which exist on the country's roads.

"Our ratios of road deaths related to traffic volumes and kilometres travelled are at least six times worse than those measured in Europe, North and South America and Australia. This is totally unacceptable" the letter states. The communication was accompanied by a Five Point Solution outlining ways of improving the present situation. It also quotes the latest calculations by Government which show the annual cost to the country of road accidents being in excess of R35-billion.

The CARS appeal is being made, says the letter "in the spirit of making South Africa a better place for its entire people. The Committee for Active Road Safety urges you to give focused attention to the challenges of reversing these alarming trends. Accordingly, we now urge you to appoint a Minister of Road Safety who, with the establishment of the appropriate structures, can be committed to and made accountable for the improvement of our road usage conditions."

DG - MSDS - SG 
While we still wait for legislation (2006?) that draws in both consignees and consignors into responsibility for overloading, manufacturers' data plate confusion becomes confounded in the lack of understanding of what it is exactly that we transport. 

Thousands of listed dangerous goods (DG) include items that get transported in ignorance. It must be a standard transport practice to follow the audit trail of cargo via a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) to determine DG status and then calculate the specific gravity (SG) of the cargo to arrive at reasonable mass/volume ratios. 

Why wait for the law? Whether the goods are DG or not, start now with drawing consignors into loading practices. Any operator who wants to be a serious trucker must delve into payload detail and issue his drivers and crews with templates for mass distribution, cargo securing standards and mass/volume ratios.
 

Heed these warnings
The DoT must heed these warnings if it is to have any credibility 

• The cost to South African fleet owners and the country is massive if legislation is not current and relevant. Gentlemen: Start your engines!

• SA road transport is desperate for uniformity and frustrated with trying to cut red tape length-ways - especially in terms of vehicle licensing. Get the RTMC into gear ASAP!

• The DoT has clearly failed on Road Safety - the much vaunted 'Road to Safety' has cost millions to go nowhere. It's time for a Minister of Road Safety.

This legislation workshop also presented every delegate with a worthwhile value-added item. Alta Swanepoel has succeeded in combining both the Act and Regulations into one bound document, grouped according to subject. Next to each Act is the relevant Regulation and it's all up to date! It's something every operator must have to prove - and not suppose or interpret - the law to ignorant local authorities.