The just released 2016/17 festive season road crash statistics which show that 1 714 fatalities (which represent a 5% increase on the previous period) were recorded on South Africa’s roads during the just ended festive season marks a depressingly familiar cycle for South Africa: festive season crash statistics are released, followed by a lot of media attention and pronunciations to change things, then we wait for the next year’s release. The spotlight shone on festive season statistics, while understandable unfortunately is indicative of the malaise currently bedevilling the country with regards to road safety. We need much more than this and road safety should be a year-round endeavour. This is something that Minister Dipuo Peters is constantly encouraging by making reference to the 365-day road safety programme developed by her department and we should all support her call. Although the figures are only for the festive period, the 5% increase on the previous period seem to provide evidence of our inexorable decline with regard to our road safety record and suggest that we are not on a trajectory of meeting the Decade of Action goal of halving road deaths from the 2011 figures by 2020. Drastic change is therefore required at both the individual as well as societal level.
Trust deficit
One fundamental obstacle in achieving any meaningful improvement in my estimation is a trust deficit firstly among road safety stakeholders and secondly between road safety stakeholders and communities. In the first instance, organisations working in the road safety space seem to doubt the motives of other interested parties while communities doubt the motives of ‘outsiders’ who come with road safety programmes into their communities. With regard to the latter, I do think that as road safety practitioners we have had a problem with not finding a language that connects with communities in real dialogue and with some justification can be accused of being out of touch and elitist. For instance, its rarely that we engage communities in the identification of road safety problems and design of interventions to address the said problems. Even in conferences and road safety workshops, communities are seldom represented. The same applies to the actual implementation of road safety programmes, where community involvement seems to be the exception rather the norm and seems to come as an afterthought in most programme designs.
Unanimity of purpose imperative
The immediate priority in my view should be to implement short-term collaborative interventions designed together with, and supported by the communities through for example road safety committees. This undoubtedly will cost money. However, for me, the challenge is not about money but how efficiently the money is targeted. At present, South Africa spends a lot of money on road safety but we do not seem to be spending it wisely. In support of this claim, one should only consider the vast amounts spent on road safety programmes by stakeholders from the NGO sector, corporate sector as well as various government agencies. It also seems to me that one area that is solely underfunded is road safety research and more funding should be channelled towards this. An inherent conundrum with this approach is whether it is prudent to put more money into research instead of preventative programmes that actually save lives. On the surface, these seemingly contradictory perspectives seem difficult to reconcile. However, they are not. Critical research is a prerequisite for any programme to be successful and we solely need this critical research. Even with this, change will not be dramatic and immediate. However, if we move along with an unanimity of purpose thereby addressing the problem of trust deficit we are likely to see an improvement sooner rather than later.
In this together
Change therefore is required from our current focus on (one would be even tempted to say obsession with) festive season crash statistics to a year-round focus on improving road safety, in channelling more funds towards evidence-based preventative programmes, and engendering trust among stakeholders informed by the fact that we all are aiming for the same ultimate goal of creating a safer road environment for our road users. In all this, one is encouraged to internalise the key message that ‘Road safety begins with me’ for indeed road safety should begin at the individual level.
