“Partnerships for Road Safety”
Madam Chair
Honourable Ministers
Ladies and Gentlemen
The DVD we have just watched is a clear illustration of the seriousness and urgency of road safety in Africa, in the world.
We say Africa has the most dangerous roads in the world. We say unless we do something drastic about road crashes, by 2020 more people will die on our roads than those killed by TB and Malaria combined. Now that we know the extent of the problem, what are we in concert with the world to do?
At the 2007 Accra Road Safety Conference we committed to improving road safety and to halve the number of crashes and fatalities by 2015.
One of the most celebrated heroes of struggle in the world is the iconic former president of South Africa Mr Nelson Mandela. We all know Nelson Mandela is a brave human being who through his fortitude withstood imprisonment for 27 years.
The only time that Nelson Mandela ever broke down during his years of incarceration was in 1968 when he learnt of his son’s death in a car crash. For more than three days following that accident, Nelson Mandela withdrew from the world into the self imposed solitary confinement. Mr Nelson Mandela refused to speak to anyone. It was only the persistence of his comrade and confidant Walter Sisulu that Mr Mandela gradually returned to normal life in prison.
In truth though, life was never ever going to be the same for Mandela. Life is never ever the same for those who are affected by deaths on the road.
Partnerships towards safer roads
This story teaches us lesson number one in the fight against road accidents.
Firstly, our greatest Partners in this struggle must be those who have lost relatives and friends in road crashes. If we have 1.3million people dying on our roads every day, then we have more than 2million people who must become our immediate partners in this struggle.
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 and 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.
We will use the life skills period 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 drivers licence in a hurry just because it is a requirement for the job.
Our 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 who close the eyes of the dead; it is the dead who open the eyes of the living!
Fourthly, our partners must be the celebrities, artists and sports people. The power of using art in this struggle is that art does not argue, it states. Art’s strongest characteristic is its capacity to penetrate the deepest faculties without imposing itself.
Sport has the ability to unite 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.
The fifth partnership we must place on the table is that of business. In South Africa we want business to come in as funders and sponsors particularly for our education campaigns. We want business to sponsor simulators which we will use to skill young people into becoming drivers by the time they leave school.
Recommendations
Siyabakhumbula Campaign – Remembrance Day
In 1997 we launched the first mass based Remembrance Programme called Siyabakhumbula: We Remember Them.
Through Siyabakhumbula road deaths ceased to be mere statistics; the numbers became human beings whose lives were shattered or lost in a road accident. We started remembering the dead as we should remember them as friends, family, fathers, mothers and children.
This process narrowed the responsibility of the driver to a simple formula – by drinking and driving, overnight a person can change from being a God -fearing individual to being a killer; by overloading a person can have death on my hands.
On August 31 1997 we had just finished a busy Siyabakhumbula campaign when we got a call at 5am to be told that Diana, Princess of Wales had died. It was incredible that such a personality, such a vibrant life could die in a car accident that way.
I also speak from personal experience having lost my 24-year-old son in a road crash.
This however reminds us that road accidents know no boundaries.
All of us have to be part of this global partnership against road deaths
Road deaths are unnecessary. Road deaths can be stopped.
Through the three-pronged approach of Education, Engineering and Enforcement we can eradicate these deaths.
* Through Education we must create a new culture of road use which moves away from statistics to treating road deaths as a waste of precious lives. If we can reduce the human element as a contributory factor in road deaths, we will be able to half road deaths by 2015.
* Through Engineering we must continue building roads which are user friendly and which provide a safer driving environment. We have also introduced stricter enforcement through the demerit system.
* Enforcement involves changing the life-time right of having a driver’s licence to a privilege which drivers must earn by remaining within the law. With the introduction of the demerit system in South Africa in 2010, a driver’s licence will no longer be a lethal weapon.
Conclusion
In six month's time, the world will descend on Africa for the FIFA World Cup in 2010. Before that, next month on 04 December 2009, the Final Draw for the 2010 FIFA World Cup will take place in Cape Town. This will set off an unprecedented world march towards Africa, a march towards South Africa.
It is clear to us: the FIFA World Cup is not just about sport; it is much more also about transport. It is by air, by road and by sea that the world will come into South Africa. Once in the country, it is by sea by air and by road that we will transport them from the hotels and their homes to the stadium and back. If transport fails, the World Cup fails.
When millions descend on our country next year our obligation is to make sure they are transported from the airport to the hotel, from the hotel to the stadium in comfort and in safety. Our roads must be safe, our roads will be safe. We will use the occasion to build lasting memories for the world to return to South Africa way beyond the 2010 World Cup.
Thank you.
Issued by: Department of Transport
20 November 2009
