The Programme Director
Executive Mayor of Moqhaka
MMC responsible for Road Safety matters
Esteemed guests who are representatives of various media houses
Officials of the department
Men and Women in Khaki and Blue
Ladies and gentlemen.
Programme Director, let me take this opportunity to welcome and thank representatives of the various Media Houses who are gracing this Media Briefing by their presence. Indeed we are grateful and humbled by your presence.
Road Safety is the responsibility of all of us. The Media is very central, particularly in our efforts to decrease the carnage playing itself on our roads especially during Easter and the Festive Season.
We recognise with appreciation your role to inform, educate and entertain the citizens of this country and thus shaping attitudes and perceptions of people. We therefore request you to play your role to the utmost so as to make our roads safe for all of us.
We remain steadfast in our Operation Hlasela to make sure that our roads are safe. The Operations which I am going to reflect on are part of our continued effort to respond to the call by the United Nations as articulated in the Campaign: Decade of Action to Make our Roads Safe.
It is our responsibility to consistently deliver the message that Road Safety is the responsibility of all of us.
During The State of the Province Address, the Premier Honourable Ace Magashule did not mince his word when he challenged us to make everything possible to reduce the carnage on our roads:
“Irresponsible and reckless driving remains a perennial feature on our roads with speeding, drunken driving and dangerous overtaking, leading in the cause of crashes.”
During my Budget Speech at Ventersburg on 25 March 2013, Road Safety became one of the most important deliverables that I committed the Department to, and promised the Free Staters including motorists from other provinces who travel on the national routes that run across the province a safe passage (N1, N3, N5, N6 and N8)
Let me re-iterate what I said on that day:
I want to re-assure the Free State citizens that we are not going to fold our arms and watch as people die like flies on the roads, even worse during Easter and Festive Season. This department will continue looking into strategies to improve the situation on our roads. As former Minister of Transport, Honourable Mac Maharaj put it, “one death on the road is one too many.”
In my Easter message, I indicated that we are going to focus on a number of offences and infringements that continuously result in road crashes that lead to injuries and fatalities:
- Exceeding speed limits (Asibafuni o Schumager, If you want to speed, go to Kyalami)
- Drunken driving
- Dangerous overtaking
- Overloading
- Driving whilst using a mobile phone
- Failure to wear a seatbelt
- Driving un-roadworthy vehicle etc.
I promised the Free Staters that our campaign will not end after Easter – that we shall persist with the campaign 24/7 for 365 days. We are going to maintain high visibility of transport and traffic officers on all our roads and taxi ranks.
Part of our campaign is to focus on public transport. All of us are aware that crashes involving public transport vehicles have the capacity to claim many lives at a go.
A case in point is the head-on collision between a minibus and a midi-bus some 10km from Senekal to Arlington which claimed 8 lives at a go on Thursday, 28 March on the eve of Good Friday.
We have decided to move from one area to another, dealing with challenges facing public transport at the same time also conduct Road Safety Education and routine law enforcement.
We mounted Operation Hlasela in Qwaqwa during the week of 15 – 21 April and cleaned public transport operations and thereafter handed over to the Local Municipality and our officers on the ground to sustain the stability.
We are now in Kroonstad since the 23 April, and we shall remain here until there is stability on public transport operations and also general observance of the traffic rules.
We are not going to divulge our next stop station. We shall descend like a ton of bricks. Those who violate their conditions of operating will feel the heat.
We noted similar challenges in both QwaQwa and Kroonstad:
- Vehicles operating without proper operating licenses or permits
- Vehicles operating on routes not specified in the Operating License. This is a recipe for taxi violence.
- Drivers / Operators violating conditions of their permits e.g. overloading or ferrying commuters in un-roadworthy vehicles.
We have dealt with these challenges without mercy. Actions that have been taken include the following:
- Discontinued un-roadworthy vehicles.
- Impounded vehicles without operating licenses or operating on wrong routes.
- Arrested drivers transporting passengers / commuters without operating licenses.
- Confiscated fraudulent permits and impounded vehicles that were operating inter-provincially using such permits.
- Impounded vehicles driven by foreign nationals. It is against the law to hire a foreign national to transport members of the public without an RSA Professional Drivers Permit.
- Impounded vehicles loading passengers at hiking spots etc.
As said before, during our operations we also paid attention to other traffic transgressions. It is unfortunate and very alarming that we noted high levels of non-compliance to the general rules of the road e.g.
- People driving without driver’s licenses.
- Failure to wear safety belts. (In one operation that lasted for3 hours, we issued 192 fines.)
- Driving whilst talking on a mobile phone.
- Driving un-roadworthy vehicles.
Conclusion
Let me conclude by making a special appeal to all the Media Houses to partner with us in this noble cause of reducing drastically the carnage on our roads. Many families live in grief; we must do something to arrest the situation stand up and be counted. It is your responsibility, it is my responsibility and the responsibility of all of us to stop the carnage on our roads.
Ndiyabulela.
Ke ea leboha.
Thank you.
Baie dankie.
