|
AA calls for urgent road safety strategy
THE AUTOMOBILE Association of South Africa has expressed concern over Arrive Alive statistics which estimate that
between 18 000 and 25 000 motorists, truckers, motorcyclists, cyclists and pedestrians will lose their lives in the next
year – on average of one road death every 48 minutes. During 2006, 15 500 people lost their lives on South African
roads.
“The Automobile Association is alarmed at these Arrive Alive estimates for 2007 road fatalities - especially when their
mandate is to reduce fatalities and injuries on our roads,” says AA Public Affairs Director Ayanda Vilakazi.
“At an African Road Safety congress held in Accra, Ghana in February this year, our Ministry of Transport signed the
Accra Declaration committing to halving road accident deaths by 2015. Yet the situation is obviously deteriorating
due to the Road Safety Strategy not having been implemented.”
South Africa has one of the highest road accident death rates in the world and apart from the grief and hardship of
losing family and friends, the cost to the economy is estimated at R50 billion per annum or 3% of GDP.
Yet it is patently obvious that the annual budgets of the Department of Transport, the Arrive Alive campaign, the
Road Traffic Management Corporation and the Road Accident Fund dedicated to road safety combined, are
inadequate for the implementation of Road Safety initiatives developed by the Department of Transport and the Road
Traffic Management Corporation,” says Vilakazi.
“Elsewhere in the world, specifically in developing countries, road deaths have been reduced, starting with the
political will and then extending into simple measures and initiatives centred around driver training and awareness,
road safety education at a young age, vehicle fitness, road infrastructures and effective law enforcement.”
As an example, Vilakazi cited a three-year campaign initiated by the Costa Rican Government which focussed solely
on seat belt usage and drink-driving. “It was shown that 92% of vehicle occupants who were killed in car crashes
had not worn their seat belts.”
As a backdrop to South Africa’s statistics, the past two weeks have seen hundreds of deaths resulting from non
seat-belt usage, drunken driving, speeding heavy vehicles, unroadworthy buses and trucks, unlawful transport of
passengers in the back of open bakkies and widespread and flagrant abuse of the rules of the road.
“Law enforcement needs to become more effective and the AA calls on the Ministry of Transport to put in place a
clear Road Safety strategy and law enforcement programme as a matter of extreme urgency. These senseless deaths
and their enormous costs to the economy must now be brought under control,” says Vilakazi. “
|
