KZN MEC for Transport, Community Safety and Liaison, Mr Willies Mchunu, has welcomed the bold proposal by the National Department of Transport to apply punitive measures on traffic offenders.
Yesterday, it emerged at the Transport Portfolio Committee in Cape Town that a team from the Department of Transport presented serious proposed amendments to the National Road Traffic Act.
The proposed amendments include barring motorists convicted of traffic offences and those who have paid admission of guilt fines from applying for Professional Driver’s Permits that permits them to drive vehicles carrying goods or passengers until after four years.
Vehicles that are 10 years and older will be required to undergo roadworthiness tests every two years if Parliament consider these recommendations. Other key amendment sought is to ban the sale of parts from scrapped vehicles and to regulate driving instructors.
MEC Mchunu said this is in line with the resolutions of the Provincial Road Safety Summit held in Durban in 2011, which directed government to investigate tough measures to fight lawlessness and transgressions on the road.
Mchunu is of the view that certain aspects of the current laws are lenient to traffic offenders, requiring harsher measures to deter noncompliance with traffic and road safety rules.
“We welcome these proposed amendments. Considering the continuing deaths on the road, we must apply severe and punitive measures to traffic offenders. We firmly believe that tightening laws will drastically reduce road fatalities.”
“The summit we held in 2011 mandated us to work hard in ensuring that motorists who disregard the rule of law are dealt with harshly. In response to the resolutions of the summit, we have formed the Integrated Traffic Law Enforcement Committee to coordinate and strengthen the work of law enforcement agencies. We have also gone a long way advancing the process towards the regulation of driving schools.”
“Just this long weekend alone 52 people were killed in road accidents in KwaZulu-Natal. This must be taken serious and we all have to play an active road in halving road accidents,” said Mchunu.
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