Pretoria - The Tshwane Metro Police Department is taking visible policing to another level, with a year-long road safety campaign.
On Sunday, the department took the campaign to the House of Mercy church in Soshanguve.
“We put this initiative together so we could engage the communities in different areas such as churches, taxi ranks and shopping centres, because people are dying on our roads,” spokesperson Senior Superintendent Isaac Mahamba told the congregants during a visit forming part of the campaign yesterday.
He said that after Minister of Transport, Dipuo Peters, released her festive season road death statistics last month, they realised they needed to have a year-long campaign.
“People die prematurely.
“They are not supposed to die so young but they do, and the cause of it is alcohol,” Mahamba said.
The campaign began on February 1 and will continue until February next year.
Mahamba said that in the 2015/16 festive season there were 75 people killed on the city’s roads.
This number increased to 83 people in the 2016/17 festive season.
“We are saying one death on our roads is one too many,” said Inspector Phindile Molefe. She said pedestrians contributed to road deaths.
“You will find that a week does not go by that a pedestrian does not get hit by a car and dies.
“Our statistics are very sad.”
She urged pedestrians to make use of pedestrian crossings and only cross when it was allowed, and to also wear reflective clothes when walking in the dark.
“Motorists please also observe the rules of the road.
“Children are becoming orphans due to road accidents.”
She said drivers needed to wear their seatbelts as soon as they got into the car, and must also insist
that all passengers wear them too.
Molefe also made an appeal to parents to stop letting their unlicensed children drive their cars.
“You send them to buy something at Shoprite but you know they don’t have a licence.
“Your children can die.
Sometimes they also get excited that they’re driving mom or dad’s car, and they start wanting to show off to their friends.
“They die like that.”
The campaign took place in Soshanguve at the weekend with the team first going to the local radio station, and then proceeding to the Soshanguve Plaza before heading to the church.