MEDIA STATEMENT

KZN's ASIPHEPHE ZERO TOLERANCE CAMPAIGN RECORDS MORE THAN HALF A MILLION TRAFFIC OFFENCES

Traffic officials will be out in full force from today as many people are expected to take advantage of the public holiday tomorrow for an extended long weekend.

Traffic volumes are likely to increase this afternoon and every available traffic officer will be deployed along major routes in the province to monitor traffic flows and to clamp down on dangerous drivers. Motorists are warned to obey the rules of the road and to ensure the safety of other road users.

No mercy will be shown to road users who disobey road rules.

To this end, the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport's Road Traffic Inspectorate (RTI) charged motorists for 712 662 various road traffic offences for the period January to December 2000, as compared to 574 887 traffic offences for the same period in 1999.

Of the 712 662 offences in 2000, 75,97% (541 450) were for speed-related offences. 958 drivers were arrested for drunk driving and 56 for reckless and negligent driving. 18 459 driver's licence offences were recorded and 17 855 persons were charged for not wearing seatbelts.

Drivers were charged for 91 596 vehicle defects and 3 461 vehicles were suspended for being in an un-roadworthy condition.

The drivers of 16 056 heavy motor vehicles were charged for being overloaded.

KZN MEC for Transport, Mr S'bu Ndebele, has hailed the campaign as a tremendous success and congratulated traffic officers for the commitment they displayed. "The success of the campaign cannot be measured by the large number of prosecutions but by the impact that Asiphephe has made on driver attitude and behaviour."

"The campaign has heightened public awareness of road safety and people all over this province have responded positively to the campaign. Our officers worked many hundreds of hours in overtime and dedicated all their available time to enforcement operations. Because of their high visibility, incessant roadblocks and continuous enforcement exercises, the stringent enforcement served as a deterrent to stop people violating the law on the road," Mr Ndebele said.

Mr Ndebele cautioned however, that although Asiphephe resulted in a significant reduction in road deaths, the death toll was still too high.

"Traffic law enforcement is only one component of a multi-faceted approach to reducing road fatalities - the other components being engineering of hazardous locations, public awareness and education programmes and evaluation and research to ensure a scientific data-driven approach. The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport is working on a long-term approach to address this problem. We do not believe that sporadic, quick-fix campaigns is the answer to reducing road trauma and deaths," he said.

N.B. The above-mentioned enforcement figures only reflect the enforcement operations conducted by RTI and exclude the enforcement operations carried out by the Durban City Police and other local authority traffic departments in KwaZulu-Natal.

Contact: Vijen Murugan at 082 808 1733.

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