Eastern Cape Premier Noxolo Kiviet has made a clarion call to the people of the Eastern Cape to support the Arrive Alive campaign. While presenting her State of the Province Address on Friday, Premier Kiviet expressed concern about the high road accidents fatalities in the province.
“Our province has in recent times experienced incidents of high road accident fatalities. We appeal to our people to heed the call of Arrive Alive,” she said.
There were loud cheers in the Raymond Mhlaba chamber of the Eastern Cape legislature, when she announced that government would show zero tolerance to drinking and driving to promote road safety using the 12 point driving licence demerit system as a key tool when this comes into effect on the 1st of April this year.
The new system forms part of Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (AARTO) and is expected to play a pivotal role in preventing accidents on our roads.
A direct response to this call was made on the same day, when the MEC for Transport, Safety and Liaison, Ghishma Barry, launched a weekend operation, which marked the end of a two day national Law Enforcement Technical Committee (LETCOM) meeting chaired by the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC).
The meeting was attended by the heads of traffic from all nine provinces, the metros and municipal traffic authorities.
“As part of the LETCOM tradition, an activity had to be arranged. As the province, we decided to showcase our ‘Best Practice Model’ in traffic law enforcement, which focuses on drunken driving law enforcement and has been hailed as the best model in various meetings, including national and international conferences,” said MEC Barry.
This model was introduced in 2008 by MEC Barry through the establishment of a roving special operations task team, which comprised of members from provincial and municipal traffic, South African Police Service (SAPS) and the Department of Health. In its first festive season operation in 2008/09, this task team reduced road accidents by 30 percent, which prompted MEC Barry to give an instruction that this task team should continue until the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
To date, the following have been achieved:
* 3 992 motorists were arrested for drunken driving
* 33 466 summonses worth R16 548 880 were issued
* 1 975 vehicles were suspended
* 212 government vehicles were confiscated because of misuse
The last weekend’s operation resulted in 494 motorists being arrested, 45 in Port Elizabeth, 103 in Mdantsane, 128 in King Williams Town and 218 in East London.
Media contact:
Ncedo Kumbaca
Cell: 082 44 22 388
Issued by: Department of Transport, Eastern Cape Provincial Government
22 February 2010
