INLSA

Manny de Freitas

Much attention has recently been paid to the transport minister’s off-the-cuff proposal to reduce the national speed limit from 120km/h to 100km/h.

Informants in the department tell me the minister was unaware (until it was pointed out to him) that the speed limit for buses and taxis is already 100km/h.

This was changed over 10 years ago!

On the face of it one can agree with this call. There are various examples of how governments like making such a proposal as this is an easy issue that can be “measured” and “explained” to motorists. Because speeding is associated with motor-racing and car chases in movies, the public has traditionally been easily convinced that the unacceptable carnage can be dramatically reduced if motorists drove within a low speed limit. All this sounds logical, except for one problem: this is not supported by facts in South Africa in the past 15 years.

The government’s own entity, the RTMC (Road Traffic Management Corporation) shows in its official statistics that the road death toll climbed rapidly from 9 068 in 1998 to 15 393 in 2006.

The department’s own figures illustrate that the adoption of speed limit enforcement as a principle road traffic strategy has not improved the situation or saved lives. The very opposite is true.

Various transport research projects illustrate that the chances of survival by motorists are better within the 105km/h to 115km/h speed band. The research further proves that speeds below the 80km/h band produce the most fatalities. The fact is that the majority of people who die on our roads do so at speeds considerably below the speed limit. The rising death figures in buses and taxis which have speed limits of 100km/h also reinforce this research.

Had the minister undertaken some basic research before making this announcement he would quickly have discovered that there are unintended consequences to it.

The MD of driving.co.za, Rob Handfield, estimates that it could cost the taxpayer up to R100 million to replace tens of thousands of 120km/h speed limit signs.

Tens of millions would also be lost in the private sector that spent millions on recording the speed limits in order to monitor driver behaviour standards and detect driving anomalies. These companies would now have to spend additional millions should the proposed changes by the minister come to fruition.

The bottom line is that the minister is looking at “new” solutions when he isn’t even doing any of the basics which he should be doing. As I have on numerous occasions advised the minister, the straightforward way of reducing road deaths is by overhauling the licensing system. Besides it being inefficient, ineffective and outdated, the departments responsible are riddled with corruption.

The minister continues to sit on his hands despite my drawing his attention to this and providing him with specific examples.

I have no doubt that if the traffic prosecution regime were to move its focus from a profit-driven one to a safety orientated one, it would quickly yield results. This is illustrated in the City of Johannesburg where 989 000 fines are speed-related for every million fines issued.

The minister justifies his proposal by citing Australia where their traffic fatality figures are reduced. The truth is that speed restrictions played a minor role in reducing Australia’s fatality rates. The minister ignores the fact that highways in areas in Australia where the speed limit has been increased to 130km/h have actually reduced road fatalities.

Speeding in certain instances may be a contributing factor to deaths but is rarely the root cause of collisions. The minister and his departments are not addressing real crash causes such as moving violations but instead almost exclusively focusing on camera-based speed prosecutions. However, more deaths are caused by overtaking at no-overtaking lines and blind rises, not stopping at stop streets and red traffic lights and not observing safe following distances – to mention a few.

Relatively little attention is paid to drink driving yet somewhere in the order of 45 percent of all road deaths are due to the influence of alcohol.

Typically, this government thinks that by simply making new laws or regulations things will suddenly improve.

The very example the minister provides, Australia, has highly professional and effective law enforcement agencies with competent officials who know and understand their laws.

If the minister himself doesn’t know the basics, how can he expect his agencies and officials to have the discipline to know and enforce the laws already there?

How many times have we seen traffic officials not wearing seatbelts and talking on cellphones while driving?

Officials need to lead by example and not think they are above the law, like previous Ekurhuleni police chief Robert McBride. We now see that the Deputy Chief of the Tshwane Police Department, Ndumiso Jaca, drove with fake number plates on a unroadworthy vehicle. Once these unacceptable practices are punished and stopped and the minister starts doing the basics, the motorists will start acting more responsibly and things will start to change for the better.

Manny De Freitas is DA Member of Parliament for Joburg South, and Shadow Deputy Minister for Transport