One of the truisms of life is that something must happen for something to happen. We often wait for crises or some life-changing experience to happen in our various walks of life only then do we act. Unfortunately, this is a familiar (and frustrating) theme in road safety in South Africa, and perhaps elsewhere. For instance, a child must be knocked by a speeding car, a community demonstrates in the aftermath and digs up the road before we install traffic calming measures; an overloaded, unroadworthy bakkie carrying schoolchildren to school must crash before scholar transport becomes a topical issue (for only two or three weeks at that). A speeding public transport vehicle must overturn and kill and or maim dozens of people before we launch a high profile anti-speeding blitz. A haulage truck must crash through a barrier on the freeway because the driver was tired before we embark on a fatigue management programme for truck drivers. One could go on and on. This should not be like this. Continue reading “The tragedy of our approach to road safety: Something must happen for something to happen”