Much is written about the carnage and death on South African roads with the 2012/2013 death toll sitting at 1300. Blame is often ascribed to those that drive under the influence of alcohol and /or are speeding. Yet statistics are not published as to what level these factors contribute to the death toll. Another very large contibutor is the amount of pedestrians (often drunk) who are killed daily. Over the holiday period this figure stood at 46%.
We should have a fair view on this situation and compare these figures to monthly , non-seasonal figures to give us a comparison of how many people die daily on our roads.
Whilst these factors are major contributors , what about the tacit ones like lack of pavements and crossings, poorly marked road, poorly illuminated roads & narrow roads that make over taking dangerous as well as no indication/warning of road contruction. Also, roads that are in poor condition with ruts and pot holes... which can cause a motorist to have a blow out and/or loose control of his vehicle.
Blame is way too easily ascribed to the motorists ...who accepts it as his lot in life. Blame should also go to roads dept , traffic dept and municipalites for all the conditions above.
Instead of police ambushing motorists, make visible policing the norm....increase salaries to eliminate corruption and incentivise policing and not targets eg no. of cars stopped or ticketed /arrested etc. People should admire police and not despise or fear them. Police often complain about lack of personnel/vehicles when it comes to investigating major crimes yet traffic police (both Netro and SAPS) seem not to have a problem with vehicles.
Use the toll gantries for avg speed monitoring, install more passive traffic monitoring equipment incl fixed cameras to regulate urban speed. This would free up personnel and vehicles to attend to more important policing work. But I guess metro and SAPS is about revenue generation and what better way to garner revenue than from traffic fines.
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