Easter safety campaign hits the road
Easter Road safety campaign launched.
EASTER weekend is a notorious period for road accidents in South Africa, and KZN especially. To minimise accidents, the Department of Transport officially launched its Easter Road Safety campaign at Sugar Ray Xulu Stadium in Clermont to ensure safety on the roads during this period.
Minister of Health, Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo who spoke on behalf of Minister of Transport Willies Mchunu urged all to remain vigilant on the road.
“Road safety is a collective responsibility. This means we must all say no to bad behaviour.We must say no to drinking and driving, no to un-roadworthy vehicles, no to impatience on the roads, no to road rage and no” to driving long distances without rest,” he said
He explained that law enforcement campaigns over this period would run over four phases: The Freedom Day long weekend from 25 to 28 April 2014 right up until Worker’s Day on 1 May 2014. A total of 792 traffic officers will be strategically deployed to problematic or high traffic volumeareas.
The integration with other law enforcement services will also heighten our visibility and presence on the road. These include the South African Police Service, Customs, Cross-Border and Immigration forces, as well as Metro and local municipality police. Every traffic station will ensure that there is a vehicle check point in all areas of the province to root out irresponsible behavior from our roads.
“Our visitors needs to be safe in our province,” said Dhlomo.
“The Highway community knows too well the devastation and the negative impact that fatal road accidents cause. We all will remember the unfortunate accident that occurred last year on 5 September when a truck crashed into taxis and claimed the lives of 24 innocent people off the M13, in Pinetown.
“This accident left a scar in our heart, it was a real tragedy. Our condolences goes out to the families who lost their loved ones. That accident happened only four days after another unfortunate accident between Melmoth and eShowe, which claimed 11 lives nine of whom were young girls from Umkhosi woMhlanga,” said Dr Dhlomo.
