Another year, another chance for us all to remember our road crash dead and injured. Mention is often made of 14, 000 people dying on South Africa’s roads annually as well as the R306 billion cost of crashes per year to the country. But what of the social loss to families and friends? One cannot calculate that. As we observe this year’s World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims (WDR) on Sunday 20 November 2016)[1], we should keep this in mind; reflect on our progress in meeting the target of the Decade of Action for road safety goal of halving fatalities by 2020 and ask ourselves some difficult questions.
Failing miserably
The figures in the preceding paragraph raise several fundamental questions: Are we addressing road safety the right way? Has the message of road safety resonated thus far? Have the huge amounts of money allocated for road safety been spent effectively? The answers to these questions seem to be an unequivocal no judging by the stubbornly high crash statistics which unfortunately do not suggest that we are on a trajectory to meeting the targets of the Decade of Action. 14, 000 deaths per annum (if one uses the lower end of estimates) is hardly a sign of the efficacy of current measures to curb the carnage currently obtaining on our roads. We undoubtedly have a pandemic in progress and we are failing to win the war on road traffic-related trauma. Failing miserably for that matter.
Silver lining
What then are we to do if we agree that our efforts thus far have not been nearly successful. A common narrative in some circles is to blame the government for not doing nearly enough to arrest the pandemic. This seems to emanate from a deep frustration in some of us with the lack of any real progress in reducing the carnage on our roads. However, simply blaming government appears to the writer as a way of absolving ourselves as individuals and as organisations working in the road safety space. The fundamental question in the writer’s estimation should be what can we do to help government achieve the targets of the Decade of Action of halving road deaths by 2020 because ultimately the government cannot do it alone. The government should obviously take the lead in attempts to reduce road crashes while we support it through multi-stakeholder collaborations.
In this regard, it is heartening to note that the topic of road safety seems to have gained political traction as evidenced for instance by the national department of transport (NDoT) hosting the National Road Safety Summit in November 2015 (whose intended outcome was a National Road Safety Strategy) and the subsequent national youth road safety summit that was held earlier this year. It is also heartening to note that collaboration seems to be on an upward trajectory with corporate and civil sector organisations working together on various interventions to address the scourge. Two excellent examples of collaborations that spring to mind are:
- Childsafe and Discovery Insure’s Safe Travel to School Project (currently being implemented in Cape Town but planned to be rolled out to other cities) aimed at making travel to and from school safer for our children
- GRSP South Africa and Shell’s Safe to School Safe to Home Project in the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality aimed at ensuring children get to and from school safely.
While this is heartening one has to hasten to add that more could be done in terms of road safety collaborations. New partnerships will have to be formed and existing ones strengthened. It is incumbent upon all of us to work collectively to improve our road safety record as a country. Failure to do so will mean that we will continue to pay a heavy price for any inertia through the continued loss of lives on our roads.
Share details about planned activities
As mentioned earlier, this year’s WDR will be observed on Sunday, 20 November 2016. We therefore encourage all those with an interest in saving lives on our roads to join in the commemorations and share details about any planned activities by submitting these on the WDR website via the following link:
http://worlddayofremembrance.org/submissions/event-submission-form/
[1] The World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims (WDR) is commemorated on the third Sunday of November each year – to remember the many millions killed and injured on the world’s roads, together with their families, friends and many others who are also affected. It is also a Day on which we thank the emergency services and reflect on the tremendous burden and cost of this daily continuing disaster to families, communities and countries, and on ways to halt it. For more information on the WDR please visit http://worlddayofremembrance.org/about/
