Eastern Cape MEC for Transport Thandiswa Marawu officially opened the Burgersdorp Junior Traffic Training Centre (JTTC) on Thursday 20 October 2011.
The JTTC’s, which are known as miniature training centre’s, are built to be an all access area targeting Primary school kids and are seen as a way of addressing limitations of learners with regard to road safety and hopefully reduce serious casualties from road crashes.
They are not only meant to educate and familiarise kids on concepts, skills and attitudes related to traffic safety, but to provide them with the insight on how to make use of other service delivery places including, clinics, police stations, post offices, municipal offices etc. and their aim is to pass on knowledge pertaining to:
- Safe Pedestrian Behaviour
- Traffic Safety Rules
- Traffic Signs
- Road Markings
- Pedestrians & Driver Skills in a Safe Simulated Traffic Situation
- Positive Attitude in Road Usage
“It is indeed a milestone to unveil a lasting solution to the problems of road safety, which continuously affect our communities, especially our children and this centre is a further demonstration of our commitment in ensuring that children have a brighter future through provision of a social infrastructure that will be a fountain of knowledge”, said MEC Marawu.
The facility cost R258 584 to build and has created employment opportunities for 11 local people of which the majority is the youth.
The department also stated that it is already on track with regard to children’s participation in road safety programmes involving projects such as:
Participatory Educational Technique whose objective is to
- Make learners aware of road safety issues in their community
- Empower learners with research skills
- Develop learner’s presentation skills
- Promote team work in the school environment
Learner Driver Project, which ensures that learners from Grade 11 and 12 understand the rules of the road, based on K53 system of vehicle control and obtain learners and drivers licenses before leaving school
Scholar patrols, where the province now has 223 of them with 238 crossings and 2 734 learners participating.
Roads safety schools debate
Children and youth were targeting during pedestrian safety workshops
This financial year the department has been working together with the Community Road Safety Councils throughout the province with the intention to:
- reach 510 000 learners through Road Safety Education.
- train 25 300 adults on Road Safety Education.
MEC Marawu also handed out certificates to the Joe Gqabi District Transport Forum saying that, through innovation and empowerment programme, the department wants to ensure transportation sector development and meaningful stakeholder empowerment with a primary focus on the District Transport Forums.
“We want these forums to be fully functionally and empowered to participate in service delivery planning and implementation through Integrated Transport Plans and during project implementation as well as serve in Project Steering Committees”, she said.
