Barely hours after Transport Minister Sibusiso Ndebele and provincial Transport MECs committed to intensifying road safety programmes, another horrific road crash has claimed the lives of 15 people.
According to Western Cape Traffic Authorities, the driver of a school bus lost control and went into a river in Knysna. The death toll from the accident, still to be confirmed, now stands at 15.
“We cannot go on like this,” Minister Ndebele said. “This horrific road crash in Knysna today, 24 August, which claimed the lives of innocent school children, is yet again an unnecessary loss of lives. We want to convey condolences to the families and colleagues of those killed, and wish the injured a speedy recovery.
The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) has dispatched an independent team of accident investigation and reconstruction specialists to assist in the investigation of this crash. Officials from the Road Accident Fund will also visit the families of the deceased to provide support and render assistance.”
From 6 to 24 August 2011, at least 60 people have been killed in six separate crashes, all involving public transport vehicles (buses and mini-bus taxis), in KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, Mpumalanga and Western Cape.
Addressing Transport MECs and senior officials at a MinMec (a coordinating body chaired by the Minister and primarily comprises of the Deputy Minister, nine MECs for Transport and other key officials) meeting in Cape Town yesterday, 23 August, Minister Ndebele called on MECs to ensure that road safety programmes in the various provinces are intensified in line with the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020.
“South Africa can no longer afford a business-as-usual approach to road safety,” he said. “The month of August has been horrific in terms of road crashes and deaths, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal. Provinces and municipalities should already be putting in place road safety plans for September to ensure there is no recurrence of what happened on our roads during August.
“Each province and municipality must know where, when, why, who, what and how in terms of road deaths in their respective areas. MECs and mayors must ensure that all traffic chiefs provide a detailed weekly evaluation and analysis of road deaths for their policing areas, as well as corrective measures being implemented. There must be active participation from national, provincial and local government in this Decade of Action for Road Safety. We will be entering into Service Level Agreements with provinces and municipalities withspecific road safety targets.
“These tragic deaths and the misery and grief they cause are not inevitable. They can be prevented, if measures are taken by all of us to ensure safe roads. We are therefore calling upon all South Africans to play your part in this Decade of Action,” Minister Ndebele said.
The meeting agreed that thefollowing five priorities must be urgently addressed by provinces and municipalities:
- Improvement in the methodologyand collection of road traffic crash data
- Service Level Agreements to be concludedwith regards to transport deliverables, particularly road safety and traffic law enforcement
- The RTMC to intensify investigations into acts of corruption and poor service delivery at licensing centres and to provide recommendations
- Enforcement on drunk driving to be stepped up
- Provision of 24-hour traffic law enforcement to be rolled out across the country.
As part of the new National Rolling Enforcement Plan (NREP), from 1 October 2010 to 31 July 2011, 11,745,526 vehicles and drivers have been checked, 4,847,526 fines issued for various traffic offences, 17,758 drunk drivers arrested and 46 843 un-roadworthy vehicles (the majority of which are buses and taxis) discontinued from use.
