AA: Education and enforcing keys to reduce road fatalities

Only proper education from a young age and more extensive measures relating to the importance of road safety, along with more stringent enforcing, will help curb the country’s road death toll in the long run.

This is the view of the Automobile Association (AA) after the release of the annual festive season accident report descended into controversy for allegedly not being accurate.

Disputed figures

In announcing the findings earlier this month, Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula stated that 1 451 motorists died on the country’s road over the festive season, a reported decrease of 13.9% over the same period in 2021.

Besides Gauteng, whose fatality count increased by 5.5%, significant decreases were posted across the remaining eight provinces, with the biggest being in the Western Cape (36.7%), Mpumalanga (23.8%) and the Northern Cape (21.5%).

The findings of the report have, however, been questioned not only for its apparent incorrect figures, but for still being too high despite the decrease.

“The rate of 1 451 fatalities is simply still too high, and cannot be regarded as a gain in terms of road safety,” the AA said in a statement shortly after the release of the report.

AA gets though

In a follow-up regarding the findings, AA spokesperson Layton Beard remarked that while enforced measures to curb the rise in fatalities had been in place since 2016 under the auspices of then Transport Minister Dipuo Peters, very little has seemingly been applied physically since then.

ALSO READ: 1 400 festive season road deaths – Gauteng only province to show increase in fatalities

Of particular intrigue is the latest’s report lack of details regarding drunk driving after an extensive survey by zutobi.com four years ago identified South Africa as the country with the worst drunk driving related fatally rate in the world at 57.5%   

“The findings of this report [Traffic Law Enforcement Review Committee] got tabled in 2019 and around 20 different recommendations were drawn-up on how make traffic more effective, how many traffic enforcers are required to professionalise and where funding and resources will come from etc,” Beard told The Citizen.

“And it was found that in 2020, only around six to seven of people accused of drunk driving were eventually prosecuted.”

Expressing confusion as to why no figures relating to the number of drunk driving related accident were reported in the latest findings as evident by the zutobi report, Beard said the AA remains of the opinion that more effective scrutiny is needed.

He added that while the set-up of roadblocks to check licences is worthwhile, the validity of this needs be questioned relative to the same being applied to drivers suspected of being intoxicated behind the wheel.

“The European Union has set-out a specific goal to reduce road fatalities by half by 2030 and South Africa is not going to achieve those targets. We are seven years away from that and a lot still needs to be done,” Beard said.

“In our view, certain aspects need to be prioritised. We need campaigns to properly educate individuals about road safety and the professionalisation of traffic law enforcement.”

Recommendations of the report

Among the report’s key findings recommendations are:

• Necessity for better skills training for traffic officers.
• Adjust to the K53 driving code.
• Upgrading of law enforcement technology such as speed cameras.
• Better policing in areas deemed high risk.
• Lamping down on corruption.
• Better enforcing of traffic laws with the added requirement of implementing a 0% alcohol limit.
• Compulsory roadworthy tests for heavy duty vehicles older than five years.
• Legitimise so-called covert speed cameras.
• Permanent banning of unlicensed drivers.
• Right for enforcers to confiscate hand-held devices and issue a fine.
• Policing of public transport.