Keynote address by Honourable Thandiswa Marawu, MEC for Transport, Roads and Public Works at the provincial Launch of the 2012 Easter Arrive Alive campaign

King Dalindyebo and local traditional leaders,
Executive Mayor and Councillors of King Sabata Dalindyebo Municipality,
Mayor and Councillors of the OR Tambo District Municipality,
Mayors and Councillors from the municipalities around the District,
Transport Agencies,
Leaders of the bus industry,
Leaders of the taxi industry,
Leaders of the religious fraternity,
Members of the law enforcement agencies,
Officials from various government departments,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen.

Let me first take this opportunity on behalf of the provincial government to express our sincere gratitude to King Dalindyebo’s continuous support on matters of road safety. We know that recently he was personally affected by losing a member of his own family because of a road accident.

In South Africa, 40 people are dying daily on the roads and that requires all of us to do something about it.

Now it is that time of the year, when our people are pinning their hopes of our law enforcement agencies to provide safe passage to their destinations.

The Easter Holidays period poses a serious challenge to our law enforcement agencies as we expect many motorists to travel the length and breadth of the country for religious, holiday, touring and returning home purposes.

Public transport passenger vehicles such as long distance buses, mini-bus taxis, private bakkies and trailers remain huge challenges, especially for those pilgrims who utilize these types of vehicles for attending various religious gatherings.

Other road users transport freight during this period, which results in a mass exodus of vehicles travelling along the major arterial and secondary routes in South African, particularly in this province.

Between 2008 and 2011, South Africa experienced a number of serious accidents during the Easter period and the major common contributing factors were:

• speeding
• vVehicle defects, especially tyre failure, brakes and steering mechanisms
• moving violations such as dangerous overtaking
• abuse of alcohol by drivers and pedestrians
• fatigue, which mainly affected long distance drivers
• lack of pedestrian compliance
• overloading of goods and passengers
• the non-wearing of seatbelts played a major role in fatalities.

Throughout the country between March and May 2012, special attention is given to the Easter period as well as school and other public holidays with a particular focus on moving violations, vehicle and driver fitness and public transport passenger and freight vehicles.

As the department, we remain committed to ensure that we deal decisively with the challenges facing our traffic officers, especially the shortage of resources. The priority at this stage is the working resources, especially vehicles, in order to make the current contingent productive.

When we took over the provincial government fleet operations last month, the Executive Council gave us a clear instruction to ensure that we prioritise traffic officers and emergency medical and rescue services in the initial distribution of vehicles.

To date, we have procured:

• 24 sedan vehicles Traffic Law Enforcement and are ready for distribution to various districts
• 64 bakkies have been ordered and the first delivery of 38 has been made. The rest will be delivered in April 2012. About 60 of these bakkies will be converted into Ambulances and Emergency Vehicles.

Let us make sure that our traffic officers are visible 24 hours a day and help us to change the perception of the public about road safety and traffic law enforcement in our province.

This is the most important period for the provincial economy as we all know that the Eastern Cape tourism industry is booming during this period. Therefore, we have a responsibility to ensure that our law enforcement agencies are always on the road.

Please make us proud by ensuring that we have an accident-free Easter period!

Continue to work together with other law enforcement agencies with a clear understanding of the special instructions for this period, which are as follows:

1. The requirements of active stopping and checking a minimum of 15 vehicles per officer per eight hour shift will be enforced by all participating authorities.
2. All traffic offences must be targeted, however, a special enforcement focus will be done on the wearing of seatbelts both, front and rear and would continue indefinitely so as to increase the wearing rate by 25%.
3. Vehicles travelling without number plates or permits must be vigorously prosecuted.
4. Special targeted alcohol enforcement exercises must be carried out by all authorities especially during weekends, when abuse of alcohol is most common.
5. Speed measurement exercises must be targeted mainly before and in harzadous locations and these types of interventions must be policed smartly utilising minimum manpower for maximum impact. These exercises must concentrate on reducing the speeds rather than trapping motorists for funds generation.
6. All efforts must be made to undertake enforcement operations on critical days, times and routes to have the greatest impact on offences and accidents.
7. Traffic personnel must at all times act in a professional and ethical manner ensuring that the motorists’ support for road safety is secured.
8. Roadblocks must be set up and manned in a professional manner to avoid unnecessary delays and inconveniences to the motorists.
9. The Management of the Department of Transport will be visible in order to supervise, monitor and evaluate operations.
10. Our road safety officials will be visible at all roadblocks, taxi and bus ranks, taverns and shopping centres to popularise road safety during this critical period.

Today, I would also like to make a clarion call to all our public transport service providers to help us in reducing such accidents by ensuring that their vehicles are in acceptable conditions to transport our people.

It is disturbing to observe that out of the 965 104 vehicles that we stopped and screened between April 2011 and February 2012, a total of 136 buses and 1 641 minibuses were impounded because of unacceptable conditions.

Do you value the lives of your customers?

Today, I would like to reiterate our call for long distance public transport vehicles to have at least two drivers per trip in order to avoid fatigue.

In conclusion, let us continue to work together to save lives and help to change the situation on our roads.

I thank you!