Moscow: Minister of Transport Sibusiso Ndebele has called for a global partnership in the fight against road deaths in Africa and the world. Addressing delegates from over 160 countries yesterday, 20 November at the first Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety being held in Moscow, Minister Ndebele said "unless we act urgently, road deaths will become an epidemic worse than HIV and AIDS and malaria."
In a moving speech Ndebele told delegates that one of the world's greatest icons Nelson Mandela had broken down inconsolably when in 1968 he learnt his son had died in a car accident. "For more than three days, Nelson Mandela withdrew from the world into self-imposed solitary confinement. Mr Mandela refused to speak to anyone. It was only through the persistence of his comrade and confidant Walter Sisulu that Mr Mandela gradually returned to normal life in prison. A global partnership is therefore necessary to stop road accidents and to end carnage on our roads. A global partnership is necessary to end this misery which we share with President Nelson Mandela," Minister Ndebele said.
"Our greatest partners in this struggle must be those who have lost relatives and friends in road crashes. If we have 1,3 million people dying on our roads every day, then we have more than 2 million people who must become our immediate partners in this struggle," said Ndebele.
"The second group of partners in this fight must be the very young who are yet to acquire bad driving habits, to whom wearing a seatbelt, not drinking and driving can still be acquired as a force of habit. As from next year we have targeted young people at school as the building block of a new movement which seeks to make roads safer," Ndebele said.
South Africa would roll out a massive skills programme to teach young people about road safety in South Africa: "By the time our learners are 17years of age they must receive their learners licence, by the time they are 18years of age they must receive their driver's licence.
"Our people must not get a drivers licence in a hurry just because it is a requirement for the job. The third set of partners must be the religious sector which shoulders the burden of burying the dead every day of the year somewhere around the world. As we say in South Africa: It is the living that closes the eyes of the dead; it is the dead who open the eyes of the living!" Ndebele told the conference.
Ndebele also said government, as the primary driver of road safety, also had to work with celebrities, artists and sports people: "The power of using art is that art does not argue, it states. Art's strongest characteristic is its capacity to penetrate the deepest faculties without imposing itself. Sport unites people seamlessly across race and class, across generations and ages, without due regard for political and geographical borders. Together art and sports can help us build a formidable force for change, a force for a safer environment for our children and our children's children," said Ndebele.
Business including Shell and Michelin would lead a global movement to ensure that business played its appropriate role in road safety through better use of technology and development. South Africa would join the Global Decade (2010 to 2020) for Road Safety campaign which would set targets to halve roads deaths globally by 2015.
Enquiries:
Thami Ngidi
Cell: 082 888 0852
Issued by: Department of Transport
21 November 2009
