Locals urged to spend weekends at home to curb accidents

To curb road accidents, locals have been requested to spend more time with their families on weekends rather than being on the road.

“If we spend more time with our families from Friday evening, Saturday, Sunday and Monday morning making babies, we will have lesser accidents on the roads. Statistics have shown us that most accidents happen from Friday evening throughout the weekend and Monday mornings,” explained Adv Makhosini Msibi, CEO of the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC).

He was addressing hundreds of law enforcers attending the ninth consultative meeting to finalise the National Road Traffic Law Enforcement Code at Mbombela Stadium last Thursday.

The code seeks to reduce accidents, fatalities and serious injuries, create a heightened awareness of road traffic safety issues, inculcate good road user behaviour, and increase detection and prosecution of critical road offences.
Msibi mentioned that the code was also looking at upgrading and producing a multi-faceted crop of law traffic officials who are competitive to the 21 Century’s World of Industrial Revolution.

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“We need to have received input from authorities and individuals before the date of the submissions,” he said.
Msibi urged law enforcement teams, Salga and municipalities to review the draft copy of the National Road Traffic Law Enforcement Code given to them and make inputs before the closing date of March 22.

“Go and engage on different structures and send back your written comments to nrtlec@rtmc.co.za,” he said.

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Ms Gugu Langa, the chairperson of South African Local Government Association (Salga) in the province committed that Salga will make their input before the due date. She siad, “Some accidents are caused by the nature of roads such as potholes. Is it possible that the department works closely with the department of public works, roads and transport so that roads can be fixed to avoid accidents caused by bad roads,” she said.

Msibi said that once all submissions from provinces were received, terminologies will be amended and the draft will then be sent to parliament for approval.

MEC Pat Ngomane said most crashes were caused by dangerous overtaking, excessive speeding, driving while under the influence, fatigue and other instances of reckless and negligent driving.
“Therefore, the standardisation and uniformity in how we do things is critical towards attainment of the desired outcome on law enforcement. Once we speak as one and there is uniformity in how we work, we will definitely save lots of lives on the road. We believe that once the National Road Traffic Law Enforcement Code has been finalised, all provinces and municipalities will make provisions for its full implementation. I, therefore, want to appeal to officials from my department and other stakeholders to fully participate in this process so that their views are taken into consideration,” he concluded.