The next time Minister of Transport Joe Maswanganyi stands up and puts on a doleful face and announces the road death toll, my only thought is going to be why it’s so low.
It won’t be because our road traffic agencies have done anything special or that the death toll is actually down, but rather the sheer wonder that we aren’t killing more people on the roads than we already do.
Our roads are like Orwell’s Animal Farm, a place where you start feeling that to stay alive you’ve got to drive like a selfish arsehole yourself, throwing almost anything you might have learnt for your K53 out the window.
Following distances? Please, that’s just an excuse for someone taking a chance overtaking you on a blind rise to squeeze in between you and the truck to avoid getting squashed by an oncoming truck cresting the blind rise and double barrier line he just blithely ignored.
How about two trucks dicing each other, the one in the slow lane and the other in overtaking lane with 400m to go before the three lanes collapse back into two, with one of them being oncoming? Or the idiots behind you that either sit right on your backside or overtake where they’re not allowed to, even though there will be passing lanes less than a kilometre farther on.
Of course, all of that’s not counting the unroadworthy vehicles on the road, belching smoke and leaking oil, loaded to the gunnels, death traps every one of them. Or the drivers who might be drunk, or stoned or both.
Let’s not forget either the insouciance of local residents crossing national highways as cars hurtle past at 120km/* , even though the speed limit is 60km/*
The problem, though, doesn’t only exist on open roads, it starts at home.
Taxis are the worst offenders, perennially driving on the margins created by good manners, taking half gaps, crossing intersections in those stolen seconds before the light turns green or shooting a red traffic light.
There’s also the incredibly infuriating practice, typically immortalised and regularised by South African culture as "sho’t left" - going through the intersection legally on green and then stopping 3m past the traffic lights to let the passengers out.
Once again, though, it’s not taxi drivers in my experience who are the worst culprits; arrogance behind the wheel seems directly exponential to the faster the car you drive and the more expensive it is; cutting swathes through class, creed and colour.
You all know what I’m talking about.
Our daily commute is based on it. It’s the same selfish "devil take the hindmost" attitude that prevents us from car-pooling or, God forbid, using public transport, leading to the congestion that we already have to endure, that becomes intolerable when there’s a bumper bashing and the traffic immediately congeals like a coronary.
How do we fix a situation, when we get rewarded nay, encouraged, for breaking the law?
We don’t need new laws or more laws - most of us don’t even pay e-tolls for goodness sakes. No, we just need the laws applied.
Here at home the JMPD is particularly good at directing traffic, particularly in the CBD at rush hour.
Maybe if they could actually start fining drivers who break the law right in front of them, instead of going through a pantomime of outrage before waving them on.
That might be a start.