Programme director, MR Ashref Ismail
MEC for Community Safety in Gauteng, Mr Khabisi Mosunkutu
MEC for Roads and Transport in Limpopo, MS Pinky Kekana
MEC for Police Roads and Transport in the Free State, Mr Thabo Manyoni
Director-General of Transport, Mr George Mahlalela
Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) Mr Collins Letsoalo
General-Secretary of the Institute of Traffic and Municipal Police
Officers, Mr K Boikanyo
All traffic chiefs
Members of the media
Ladies and gentlemen
The 2010 FIFA World Cup
In order to host a successful 2010 FIFA World Cup, as South Africans, we rolled up our sleeves and laid out world class transport infrastructure and the best services we could offer.
We were committed to providing a safe, efficient, affordable and reliable means to move millions to all corners of our country, so they could be part of the greatest sporting event in the world, the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Without doubt, every one of the 3.1 million, who attended the 64 world cup matches between 11 June and 13 July 2010, left with a positive lasting impression of our country. We are a country of infinite possibilities!
We also take this opportunity to acknowledge the presence of the newly appointed SABC Head of News and Current Affairs Mr Phil Molefe. We would like to congratulate you on your appointment. We value the partnership and support that the SABC provides to the Department of Transport. We have no doubt that our relationship will solidify and become even stronger into the future.
Building on the 2010 World Cup
The infrastructure we constructed for the world cup is one of our lasting legacies as a country and region. This infrastructure forms a solid basis for our desire to move swiftly from being a developing country to being a developed South Africa.
Our transport infrastructure is now admired by the whole world. We must also commend the good behaviour of our people, however induced, as a key success of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Our duty today is to ensure that this commendable behaviour becomes another lasting legacy of the world cup. The question before us is this: what can we do to encourage, inculcate and sustain good behaviour on our roads after the World Cup?
Road safety is no longer a national concern. Road safety now seizes the attention of the entire world.
International perspective
- Approximately 1.3 million people die each year on the world's roads and between 20 and 50 million sustain non-fatal injuries.
- Importantly, the Global Status Report on Road Safety in Africa indicates that 62 percent of the reported road crashes occur in 10 countries. One of these is South Africa.
- The majority of the reported crashes involve vulnerable road users, pedestrians, cyclists and those using motorised two and three wheelers.
Allow me briefly to provide further perspective on this issue by referring to the following statistics of road crashes globally:
- annual deaths are forecast to rise to 1.9 million by 2020
- the economic cost to developing countries is at least united states $100 billion
- by 2015 road accidents will be the leading health burden for children over the age of five in developing countries.
Road accidents have become the number one cause of death for young people worldwide!
The South African situation
In this context, as we meet today we recall that this Wednesday alone (8 September 2010) 21people were killed in mini-bus taxi related road crashes. On 25 August 2010, 10 children were killed in a horrific accident in Blackheath near Cape Town.
In developed countries, the death of 10 people in a single incident is a national tragedy. When those who are killed are children and youth it is that much more painful.
Ladies and gentlemen, the pain felt by those mothers and fathers in Blackheath is also our pain. It is the pain of the world. It reflects the daily anguish of a nation that is busy eating its young, the most productive and energetic among our people.
We are clearly in the midst of an unprecedented epidemic. We face deaths on our roads in peace time which rival any war time casualties. Our prayers go to that Blackheath community and all others who have lost their loved ones, relatives and friends on our roads. Road deaths are preventable. Road deaths can be stopped! We say it again, road deaths are preventable deaths.
To know that accidents can be prevented is an empowering proposition. It places the power back in our hands. It anoints each and every one of us as the individual and collective leaders of a movement that seeks to defend and save all of us. The attraction of this movement for safety on our roads is that it knows no age, no colour, class or creed.
This global movement for safety does not care for origin, race or religion. Accident victims are in the urban and rural areas, in townships and in suburbs. So what measures are we taking to address these deaths?
Measures taken by the African continent
In July 2009, Tanzania hosted African Ministers of Transport at the "Africa's decade of action for road safety" Conference in Dar es Salaam. This platform provided Africa's main opportunity to debate road injury prevention issues. This was before the first ever global United Nations Ministerial Conference on Road Safety which was held in Moscow in November 2009.
In Tanzania, African Ministers of Transport examined ways in which we could contribute to the "Decade of action for safer roads". The urgency of developing a focused programme was clear to all. We were also encouraged by the United Nations General Assembly later that year which said traffic deaths and injuries were beginning to undermine the millennium development goals. In other words, accidents are costing so much that we already do not have enough resources to address poverty and to create jobs!
The "Make Roads Safe" campaign
The United Nations has proclaimed 2011 to 2020 as the United Nations "Decade of Action for Road Safety". Its goal is to first stabilise and then reduce the global forecast levels of road traffic fatalities world-wide by rolling out focused programmes in every country.
This campaign is gathering momentum all over the world. The G20 and the World Bank have already endorsed the Decade of Action. The first Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety in 2009 held in Russia, which we attended, also declared 2011 to 2020 the United Nations "Decade of Action for Road Safety".
Countries co-supported the United Nations resolution of establishing the decade of action committing to achieving this ambitious but urgent objective. The theme for the "Decade of Action for Road Safety" is "Make Roads Safe" in recognition of the unbearable global burden of road fatalities and injuries.
New national enforcement plan
In some measure our department is the only one in the country that has the authority to legislate, prosecute and judge some traffic offenders. Such power in our hands places us at the centre of change for the better.
Clearly enforcement remains one of our challenges in South Africa. For example there are about 10 million vehicles but only seven million licensed drivers. If we have seven million licensed drivers, the logical question we must ask is who then drives the other three million vehicles!
We are addressing these and other anomalies we have adopted the following measures:
- the new national rolling enforcement plan (NREP): from October 2010 to October 2011 we will stop and check one million vehicles a month!
- Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (AARTO): we introduce the demerit system
- skilling and re-skilling of drivers: better drivers on our roads
- community road safety councils: road safety is every body's business
- post-accident support through the Road Accident Fund (RAF)
We are in consultation with provincial, six metropolitan and various municipal traffic departments that comprise the National Law Enforcement Technical Committee.
The plan is informed among others by the Fatal Crash Report and the Offence Survey Results for 2009. It is in line with the priorities of the Moscow Declaration and the United Nations "Make Roads Safe" campaign. Its success, however, requires the support of especially, the South African Police and other relevant stakeholders such as Justice, Defence, Education and Health.
Work will be done to ensure the plan is supported by a clearly targeted strategy and well defined objectives. Our strategy will be based on our scientific analysis of statistics relating to cause of death and problem areas in every province. Given our limited resources, this planning will help us focus on key areas where we can make the greatest impact in reducing deaths and injuries.
AARTO
Furthermore, we are rolling out the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences. AARTO seeks to create an efficient road traffic management environment in the country and to enhance a culture of compliance through the point's demerit system.
Drivers will gradually lose points based on offences committed. All drivers will start on 12 points and recurring bad behaviour will result in the deduction of points and can potentially lead to losing one's driver's licence once one exhausts the 12 points.
Good behaviour over a period will earn the driver points back to the starting 12. Through AARTO, we want to inculcate good behavior on our roads. The dictum of AARTO is this: Obey the law or lose your licence!
Skilling and re-skilling drivers and users
Perhaps like Adam and Eve, cannot ride a horse, cannot swim, cannot ride a bicycle and cannot drive a car. Yet, we say we are many centuries removed from the book of Genesis which details humanity's first tentative steps into the world.
Our commitment therefore starting during October Transport Month is to license a million drivers a year while raising driving standards. We will at the same time tighten the screws on driving schools and testing centres while maintaining quality standards for our drivers.
Every 17 year old in South Africa must have a learner's licence. Every 18 year old must have a driver's licence. Soon, we will see our country produce people with a matric certificate in one hand and a driver's licence in the other!
Re-skilling officers
As traffic officers you are critical in our plans to reduce road crashes. You are often the first on the scene of accidents and during that critical hour you can save lives by administering first aid.
Together with the Department of Health, we therefore must provide you the necessary skills to enable you to assist in the saving of lives wherever possible.
National Traffic Information System (eNaTIS) in the region
In the same way that Home Affairs maps one's life from birth to death, the Department of Transport will also be streamlining our motor vehicle registration services. We will delineate clearly the life cycle of a vehicle from birth to death, from the cradle to the grave, from the factory floor to the scrap yard.
Through eNaTIS, we will eliminate duplicate vehicle registration and cloning.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have already agreed with our neighbouring countries to make available the use of eNaTIS to harmonise vehicle registration in the region. We have agreed with the Lesotho government to make available the use of eNaTIS by the end of January next year.
We are also pleased that by the end of September 2010, vehicles travelling between South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland and Namibia will be on the eNaTIS system. This will make sure that none of our countries are used to reregister stolen vehicles which are taken across our borders.
Community road safety councils
We acknowledge that enforcement on its own is insufficient as a long-term solution. Permanent solutions lie in the close cooperation with user communities. In this regard, by the end of 2010, most of our provinces will have fully fledged community road safety councils.
KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng have already established community road safety councils. On Monday (13 September 2010), we will be in the Eastern Cape to launch their council. The Community Road Safety Councils empower communities to become key players in their own safety. As we engage communities, we must also increase access to government services by bringing these closer to those who require them.
Post-accident support
We are therefore pleased to announce that the Road Accident Fund is rolling out help centres in health centres around the country to help survivors, beneficiaries and the injured with post-accident social insurance claims. RAF benefits must be spread to all regardless of their means or knowledge of this assistance.
Let us turn islands of compliance and excellence into a sea of change, a new culture, a new wave of good behaviour and commitment to safer roads in our country.
A country that has safer roads is a country that has safer provinces, safer districts and safer local municipalities. A country's roads are safe when every citizen is safe our roads: road safety in every village, road safety in every township, road safety in every suburb, road safety in every school and at work; road safety everywhere!
In closing, as part of the Summit we are embarking on the "Make our roads safe" signature campaign. The Road Traffic Management Corporation will collect at least one million signatures committing to safer roads in South Africa. Starting today, we must drive with our head lamps on during the day to register our support.
Also join the campaign on Face Book to pledge your support at: RTMC-AARTO. Let this wave for road safety become a river throughout our country and be embraced by all. Together we can make road accidents history. Working together, we can stop this carnage!
I thank you.
