Rather be late than ‘the late’…

Given that, as we report today, the Road Accident Fund (RAF) is dodging implementing a court order that it pay out crash victims who are members of a medical aid, perhaps we could ignore what the organisation says elsewhere in our paper in an advertisement.

Yet, unusually for a government organisation, its comments in the ad about the impending Easter holiday road carnage are worth thinking about.

According to the RAF, every 23 minutes over the holiday last year, someone died on our roads. That’s a shocker.

But what really makes sense is the RAF’s appeal to motorists and other road users that “as you buckle up, remember that your choices can save lives”.

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It goes on: “Let’s not let our roads become graveyards”, following up with the hope that the letters RIP in “Trip” don’t come to mean “Rest in Peace”.

What’s remarkable is that this correctly lays the blame for the horrific road death toll where it belongs… with drivers and other road users.

Other government departments have tried to blame the roads and even gone as far as holding “cleansing ceremonies” to exorcise the evil from them.

Only we can save ourselves. It’s always better to be late than “the late”…

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