Today marks a turning point in the delivery of provincial traffic control services in the Eastern Cape as we celebrate 48 new vehicles that we have received from Fleet Africa Eastern Cape.
For a long time, we have been experiencing challenges due to the shortage of vehicles for traffic law enforcement in our province. We have 719 provincial traffic officers and 110 Fleet Africa vehicles. Our provincial special operations task team was forced to rent 28 vehicles from various service providers.
Sometimes we were forced to have about four traffic officers patrolling in one vehicle, while some remained in offices doing administration work.
This situation is coming to an end today! It means that no more vehicles will enter or leave our province without being monitored by our traffic officers to avoid the disaster that occurred in the Western Cape province this week, which involved a bus and passengers from the Eastern Cape.
We have 26 new vehicles here, while five additional vehicles have already been collected and the remaining vehicles will arrive next week. We will pay a particular attention to all major routes and ensure that we check vehicles, especially public transport vehicles and all those that have been found to be not roadworthy would be removed from the road.
We will further deal with fatigue by interacting and disrupting the drivers through forcing them out of the road (breaking their trip) to stretch their legs. We call upon owners of long distance public transport vehicles to ensure that they have at least two drivers per trip in order to avoid fatigue related accidents.
The new vehicles that we are receiving today are going to be very helpful in enhancing service delivery by our provincial Traffic Control Directorate and improve our capacity in preparation for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. As the MEC for Transport, Safety and Liaison in this province, I am confident that we are more than ready to receive the world to the Eastern Cape and our traffic law enforcement agencies will provide a safe passage for all road users.
Various capacity building programmes have been taking place since the last financial year, including refresher courses for our provincial traffic officers. As we speak, training is underway for traffic law enforcement agencies in various districts focusing on incident management systems (IMS) in an effort to improve their capacity of dealing with accident and incident scenes.
Also included in this training programme are South African Police Service (SAPS) members, officials from South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL) and our customer care consultants, as they are the ones who are receiving information from the traffic officers on the scene.
During the tournament, all road users will be encouraged to notify our customer care centre through our toll free number 0800 644 644 about any accident or incident. On 4 June 2010, we will be launching the Eastern Cape's first Alcohol Testing Centre here in Port Elizabeth, which has been sponsored by the South African Breweries (SAB), in an effort to intensify our law enforcement against drunken driving. This will be followed by the opening of the same centre in Mthatha later this year.
In conclusion, I would like to warn all road users in the province that we have now adopted a zero tolerance approach against all those who transgress the rules of the road. Our traffic officers are ready to go in full force to restore law and order on roads. Very soon, people are going to start losing points and ultimately their drivers' licences, when the Eastern Cape starts the implementation of the AARTO demerit system.
Do not say we did not warn you!
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Safety and Liaison, Eastern Cape Provincial Government
6 May 2010
