Radley Keys highlights a few of the contributing factors to the murder that is called road accidents.
A lot has been said in the press regarding the 18% increase in road deaths over the festive season in KwaZulu-Natal, blaming driver, passenger and pedestrian liability for this disastrous state of affairs.
Admittedly, there are too many drivers who disregard the rules of the road and drive recklessly, dangerously and with excessive speed, resulting in accidents which leave themselves and innocent people dead or maimed for life.
Nothing has been said or reported regarding the KZN government's culpability in the killing fields of our roads. To highlight a few of the contributing factors to the murder that is called road accidents, let us consider the following:
Firstly, in 2013 the then-MEC for Transport in the province, Willis Mchunu, closed down a programme that was specifically aimed at stopping the illegal registration of KZN vehicles in other provinces.
Owners of vehicles who wanted their vehicles registered, knowing that they were not roadworthy, employed the services of so-called “agents” in the province to obtain registration certificates in one of the provinces outside KZN without the vehicle actually being inspected.
This has resulted in thousands of unroadworthy vehicles being certified as roadworthy and let loose on our roads.
A prime example of the damage an unroadworthy vehicle can do is the massive crash in Pinetown when a runaway horse and trailer ploughed into vehicles legally entering the intersection on the green light, resulting in numerous deaths, injuries and damage to property.
Legal drivers in legally registered vehicles are often the victims in crashes involving vehicles that have not passed any roadworthy test. The practise of registering KZN vehicles outside the province without being inspected continues unabated to this day with the disastrous consequences we witness on our roads.
Secondly, driver's licence fraud is yet another contributor to the killings on our roads. There are some corrupt driving school instructors and some corrupt driver testing traffic officers. Instead of these driving schools producing competent drivers they have devised a get-rich-quick scheme where they are in cahoots with identified corrupt testing officers. Together, they agree to have learner drivers pass their tests despite them failing and being incompetent. They do this by getting the learner driver to pay a bribe which is split between the corrupt driving school instructor and the corrupt testing officer. Money is not paid to these corrupt officials at the testing stations, but in locations away from these centres – at local pubs or meeting places in town where there is little or no chance of it being connected to the bribe paid. The effect is our roads have hundreds, if not thousands, of drivers who should not be in possession of driving licences and who are actually accidents waiting to happen when they get behind the wheel of a vehicle.
Thirdly, another factor aggravating the road carnage is the poor level of law enforcement. The transport department cut back on overtime for traffic officers, resulting in less officers on our roads to enforce compliance with the rules of the road. Visible policing on our roads is sporadic at best, while the severity of the situation demands greater visibility and more vigorous enforcement.
Drivers will not adhere to the rules if they know they will not be caught, or if they are they are able to bribe their way out of heavy fines in many instances.
The speeding blue light brigades of politicians in the province has been a shameful example to all other drivers on the road that speed limits do not apply and aggressive driving is the norm.
These three aspects of the government's role in the slaughter of so many South Africans cannot be brushed aside by its apologists. If the law makers and law enforcers are the law breakers, what can we expect from Joe Citizen, but a similar attitude of disdain towards the law and its enforcement.
To turn the situation around, bold and decisive leadership is required: plug the illegal issuing of vehicle licences for unroadworthy vehicles and prosecute those implicated, set in motion an investigation into corrupt practices in the issuing of driver's licences and charge and prosecute those involved, ensure effective and persistent law enforcement with serious consequences for those who continue to disregard the rules of the road and threaten the lives of all other road users, and set up a special unit to eradicate corrupt and illegal practices among law enforcement officers.
KZN, and all of South Africa, must not tolerate the plethora of unroadworthy vehicles, drivers who have bought their licences, law enforcers who abuse their positions for self-enrichment at the expense of thousands of lives lost on our roads every year, and road users who treat the law and its enforcers with contempt and derision. We continue on this path at our peril.
* The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.