Durban - The ferrying of pupils to and from school in bakkies, especially in KwaZulu-Natal’s rural areas, is proving to be difficult for the provincial government to tackle.
With many parents having little or no access to safe transport for their children to school, bakkies look set to carry on when schools reopen next week.
After the Imbali bakkie accident, which claimed eight young lives earlier this year, the transport and education departments were given two weeks to make policy proposals to the premier’s office on the use of bakkies to ferry children.
The KwaZulu-Natal department of transport was to also amend regulations, possibly phasing out or making it completely illegal for bakkies or any unauthorised vehicles to transport passengers.
This came about after the bakkie accident in Gamalakhe where 22 pupils were injured while being transported home from school.
Provincial government spokesman Thami Ngwenya said the departments had come forward with proposals in February but they still had a lot of work to do.
PROPOSALS
“There is a whole range of issues to be worked out in those proposals. This is not an issue we have neglected, we are still looking at it,” he said.
Ngwenya would not say what the issues were and insisted that the information would be communicated to cabinet when it was ready.
KwaZulu-Natal department of transport head Sibusiso Gumbi said the department was in talks with provincial associations of bakkie drivers who transported schoolchildren.
“There already is legislation that states how people should be transported. There are laws that govern the transportation of passengers for a reward. The Road Traffic and Transport Acts stipulate what type of vehicle should practise this and what rules they should comply with. What we are doing now is engaging with the people who transport children to school about compliance,” Gumbi said.
He said they had taken into consideration that some people in rural areas had no better transport alternatives.
“We are looking at the infrastructure in those areas and we will decide on which roads to prioritise in terms of development and other factors. It is a huge engagement and I do not have a time line because we need to remember that we have a big province.”
Currently, regulation 250 of the National Road Traffic Act 93 of 1996 makes it illegal for the transportation of passengers, for a reward, in the goods section of a vehicle.
Regulation 247 of the same act does, however, allow for the transportation of passengers in this manner, provided the body of the vehicle is of a certain height.
President of the South African Road Federation, Innocent Jumo, said urgent intervention and alternative options were needed if the problem was to be solved.
On the federation’s website, Jumo said the current situation was “intolerable” and that the government should act urgently.
AMENDMENT
“We cannot simply sit back and allow more innocent children to be killed on our roads. We are calling on the government to make an urgent amendment to the legislation pertaining to the transportation of passengers and in particular, the transportation of pupils to and from schools.
“As far as we are aware there is no legislation that prohibits the transportation of passengers in open goods vehicles.
“In fact, in certain areas, particularly rural parts of the country, people use almost any form of transport, regardless of the obvious risk to life and limb, because they feel that they have no other choice to get them to and from school or work.”
Previously, some parents voiced their concerns about their lack of options, while bakkie owners said although there had been a spate of fatal accidents, there was a desperate need for transport services, especially in rural areas.
Nokubongwa Hlongwa, 46, of Eshowe, who recently ended her business of ferrying school children, said she started her business transporting many local children but now only ferried the children of her relatives.
“They do pay me a small amount but it’s only seven of them, including one of my own. Our area is very rural; the transport here is horrible, even worse for young children needing to go to school. You cannot just say people should stop ferrying children with bakkies because it is dangerous.
“What will happen to those children, how will they get to school? We who conduct this sort of business always look like the bad guys when accidents happen, but I believe if the government intervened, this can end,” she said.
Sometimes the bakkies were driven by boys who did not even have driving licences, she said.
“Everybody knows it is illegal and dangerous but when people need money and parents need transport for their children, there is not much choice. On the other hand, if you have an accident and a child dies, whose fault is that? Yours, the owner.”
Two months after the Imbali accident, the driver of the bakkie has still not been charged.
Provincial police spokes-man, Major Thulani Zwane, said the culpable homicide and negligent driving case was still under investigation
Daily News