Here’s how you make roads safe

Another year, another round of media opportunities for ministers, MECs and senior traffic cops wringing their hands in anguish at how, despite their supposed best efforts, South Africans continue to slaughter each other on our roads.

The 2024-2025 festive season body count looks like being higher than the previous year and driving while drunk, speeding and reckless behaviour will get the blame.

This phenomenon is going to be with us forever, unless those who rule us accept two facts… and then change them.

For a start, visible policing on our highways and byways – and in particular the prosecution of moving violations – is non-existent through most of the year.

Ministers, MECs and senior traffic cops seem to believe that people only misbehave over the December-January period and that is why there is “saturation” deployment of law enforcement resources – to quote one apparatchik – over the holidays.

Unless the authorities start policing 24/7/365, drivers will get used to getting away with illegal and dangerous driving. Bust them throughout the year and maybe a “zero tolerance” message will get through.

ALSO READ: Festive season travel: Road accidents up from last year, pedestrians the highest casualties

Even more important, though, is the reality that many of the driver’s licences on our roads are not genuine, because they have been acquired through some sort of corruption. In many cases, there has been little or no real training from properly qualified instructors – and many driving schools are a joke in this regard anyway.

People behind the wheel do not know how to control a vehicle; they have no concept of speed or braking distances. Pedestrians have no idea how fast a car’s closing speed can be and they have no idea about how to be safe near a road.

Road safety begins with education at primary school level, proper driver training and law enforcement – and the eradication of corruption in our licensing systems.

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