Arrive Alive 'attack' slated

2003-01-07 10:52

Llewellyn Prince

Cape Town - Allegations that affirmative action caused the Arrive Alive campaign to fail have been denounced in no uncertain terms by government and provincial leaders.

Moira Winslow, head of Drive Alive, a national organisation focused on road safety, said on Sunday that affirmative action had been the reason why Arrive Alive had failed, this year.

Western Cape minister of community safety Leonard Ramatlakane said on Monday it was the "biggest load of rubbish" he had ever heard.

At least 1 236 people have been killed on the country's roads since December 1 - the highest in the past 11 years.

Ramatlakane says the high death toll can be blamed on the attitude of motorists. Despite road-safety awareness campaigns launched by the government, he said, motorists still chose to disregard road rules.

Western Cape transport minister Tasneem Essop said she didn't want to credit Winslow's "racist" remark, and would have expected constructive co-operation from her.

Call for Omar to resign

"A shortage of dedicated law enforcers and questioning their efficiency has no bearing on the death toll on our roads, it is mainly caused by some irresponsible drivers," said Essop.

DA transport spokesperson Stuart Farrow dismissed as ludicrous Transport Minister Dullah Omar's defence of Arrive Alive and his remark that the campaign had not failed at all.

Farrow says Omar should resign from his post as he cannot do the job.

"If he refuses to do so, he must submit a detailed plan of what he proposes to do in order to drastically reduce the death toll," he said.

In KwaZulu-Natal, an Australian model for road safety was implemented for the festive season.

Despite this, at least 221 people died - once again the province with the highest death toll.

In terms of the model, called Asiphephe, the focus was to have been on enforcing, marshalling, educating and evaluating motorists' attitudes to road safety.

In the whole of Australia for the same period, only 62 people died.

A traffic department official in the province, who asked to remain anonymous, said the Arrive Alive campaign had "failed" because of a more-efficient information-gathering system than in the past.

There were not more accidents, she claimed, but there was more information about the accidents that did happen.

She also contended the positive economy had contributed to more people from inland deciding on a holiday at the coast, causing greater traffic volumes on the province's roads.

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- Die Burger