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.
This is not to downplay the various programmes already being implemented by the various stakeholders. Admittedly a lot is already being done. However, overall we are simply not proactive enough and tend to react to events. This approach raises serious questions not only about our commitment to road safety but also about the likelihood of South Africa meeting the goals of the Decade of Action for Road Safety (2011-2020). Indeed, with only a few years to go before the end of the Decade, we are way off the trajectory to meeting the goals of the Decade of Action. We are not stabilising, let alone reducing the level of road traffic deaths in the country.
Stop talking!
It is my considered view that we spend an inordinate amount of time talking and deliberating on actions that need to be taken and less on doing what needs to be done. Unfortunately, while we talk, while we deliberate over that road safety proposal sent by an NGO, while we workshop, while we are attending that conference, while we deliberate in board meetings, while we develop those CSI plans and budgets; close to forty people are dying each day on the road of South Africa, a significant proportion of these being pedestrians.
The 14 000 deaths recorded each year on South Africa’s roads (if one uses the low-end estimate) should be sufficient to spur us into action; concerted action if one might add. It’s time we stop talking and do something. This is an exhortation for all of us, but particularly to communities, to act. This is neither the time to moan about the lack of funds nor lack of buy-in from supposedly key stakeholders. Let us be proactive and go out and do something. We do not have to wait for the next crash to act.
There is a plethora of simple and effective preventive ideas that save lives. By way of example, it must not require a child getting knocked and killed while walking to or from before setting up that walking school bus that you have been contemplating for ages. Neither must it require a pedestrian being struck by a speeding car before petitioning council to install speed humps or other traffic calming measures.
Opportunity to do things differently
With regard to communities taking a proactive lead in taking road safety action, a fundamental challenge that is often cited is money, or its lack of it. In the writer’s frequent encounters with communities, this is cited as the main constraint in not implementing road safety programmes (as well as other programmes).
While it would be ridiculous and naive to say this is not a constraint, in my estimation; the lack of funds (or indeed the real or perceived lack of support from key stakeholders) actually presents communities with an excellent opportunity to do things differently. For instance, some communities have indicated that they cannot start walking bus programmes aimed at ensuring a safe journey to and from school because they have not been able to secure sponsorship e.g. to pay a stipend to volunteers supervising the walking buses. However, parents or other groups can set up a walking bus without a need to be paid a stipend. Or as has been shown in the Cape Winelands District of the Western Cape, older children in higher grades can supervise walking buses and this hardly requires huge sums of money.
Proactive action and thinking out of the box are immediate imperatives lest we continue losing lives unnecessarily on our roads.
