VRYHEID KZN: Bellinda embraces her new position at RTI

Road Traffic Inspectorate (RTI) has a new face in the form of a brand new Station Commander, Bellinda Uchee. She is originally from the neighbouring town of Dundee, where she worked for five years before being promoted to Ladysmith. In total, Bellinda has 20 years’ experience! After 15 of those years, Bellinda was finally promoted to Station Commander and started her new position at the beginning of this year in Vryheid. She has two young men in her life, aged 11 and 12, who take up all her time when she’s not working. When you are heading a department, stress becomes inevitable, hence Bellinda enjoys reading when she has the time. She quips that it helps her to ‘shut off’ for the time being and regain her ‘sanity’. Bellinda is not a newcomer to the area though… She was born in Vryheid, but her parents moved to Dundee, where she completed her matric. She went off to the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where she pursued a course in IT. During her second year of study, a friend nagged and eventually convinced her to apply at the RTI department. Bellinda submitted her CV just for the fun of it. To Bellinda’s surprise, she was called for an interview and ‘the rest is history’, as she says laughingly. She emphasised the fact that 20 years ago, when she joined RTI, she didn’t really know what it was all about and that one wasn’t really exposed to a career in that field, but ever since she started, she has loved every moment of it. It is mostly a male-driven occupation and Bellinda is the third female in uniform at the station in Vryheid. Be that as it may, she was heartily welcomed by all her colleagues and received lots of support from everyone from the start. So what is the job of a Station Commander? Bellinda is in charge of everything at the station; from the fleet to the administration. She embraces every aspect of her job, even though she still enjoys going out on the road to work alongside her colleagues. It is a difficult job and she says the community lashes out at them on a regular basis. But Bellinda takes it all in her stride. “You get the ones who are very appreciative of what you do, and you get the ones who want to ‘murder’ you. Unfortunately, we work for the government and the client is always right. You treat the person with respect and you deal with the situation. If you see the situation is uncontrollable, you do what you need to do. The pen is mightier,” Bellinda explained on how to handle a difficult situation. Do you make arrests? “Yes, we do make arrests in cases of drunken driving and with the obstruction of justice. We are peace officers as well, so we can open up dockets.” Even though the department is mostly responsible for provincial roads – including the Dundee, Hlobane and Melmoth roads – they do every now and then engage in joint operations where they work with the local traffic department. “Currently, we are planning effective combined roadblocks where we work with the municipality, the SAPS and road safety. So we are hoping to make an impact to reduce the accident rates, crashes and fatalities for Easter. We have a lot of different programmes in place with the roadblocks, alcohol abuse, speed operations and things like that. We have already pre-planned that for Easter.” Since the ban on alcohol has been lifted, Bellinda indicates that most incidents pertain to alcohol and speeding. “We do a lot of learner transport every day, not only public learner transport but private vehicles as well. We check the roadworthiness of the vehicle and the driver’s fitness. We have actually picked up a drunken driver on a minibus transporting students in the morning.” Bellinda’s message to the community is: “As RTI, we are going to strive to reduce crashes and fatalities, and my pledge to the community is that we are going to conduct more effective law enforcement activities to ensure that all road-users have a safer passage. During our Easter period, I would like our community to be safe; don’t drink and drive; abide by the rules of the road; and we, as RTI, have our operations in place to ensure the safety of all.”

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