Transport Minister Strikes Out
11 January 2011, saw a very spirited and angry Transport Minister, Sibusiso Ndebele, stating that road users have less to fear from the impending (AARTO) Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences than the measures that he would like to see implemented. Citing severe statistics, he highlighted a variety of driver errors and a road using culture which he was hugely concerned about. He cited stats which indicate that 1551 people had suffered fatal traffic accidents simply over the festive period of December 1st to January 1st.
Ndebele placed the majority of the blame on speed enthusiasts and drivers travelling in unroadworthy vehicles. Last year, however, the death toll for the Christmas period was 1761, which does show improvement, though Ndebele was less enthusiastic. “Enforcement is working, although part of my worry is that what reduction there is, is not part of self consciousness it’s enforcement,” Ndebele told The New Age after the publication of the accident and death statistics.
Indicating the dire consequences of the new traffic act, he compared it to the AARTO act by indicating that AARTO seemed kind in comparison, as the demerit system was far more forgiving than the Road Traffic Act’s instant removal of a driver’s licence. “The Road Traffic Act that we are implementing is harsher than the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences tactic to curb bad driving. Motorists really need AARTO; AARTO is forgiving,” he said, emphasising the harsher nature of the new measure. “If you are driving 140km/h and you are in a 90km/h, your licence is gone.”
With the festive season racking up an undesirable 1221 fatal crashes, in which 1551 people were killed, the government data rests the blame on speeding, driver fatigue, overloading and burst tyres. The highest number of these incidents where reportedly found in KwaZulu-Natal, where 232 crashes took place. The Eastern Cape had not fared much better with a reported 169 accidents occurring and the Northern Cape came off better with 35. This may not seem very high but considering these figures were taken over a single month, the situation appears most dire.
An agitated Ndebele went on to state that: “We have 20 percent of the cars on this continent, but we have 60 percent of the crashes. We kill 1000 people a year without fail. Let us fail to do that. We must fail to kill and maim healthy individuals in their thousands whom we condemn to wheelchairs every day, every month, every year. We were once a nation of shameless public smokers, yet we managed to pull ourselves away from that”. The roll out date for the full implementation of AARTO has, as yet, not been formally released.
Author : SASM
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