MEDIA STATEMENT

KZN EASTER ROAD AND TRAFFIC UPDATE

KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Transport Mr. S’bu Ndebele has called for mandatory sentencing instead of discretionary sentencing to be introduced for certain categories of traffic offences.

Ndebele was speaking at Kingsmead Cricket Stadium in Durban yesterday during the World Road Safety Day, held under the auspices of the World Health Organisation (WHO). Ndebele’s call follows an incident in Chatsworth last Saturday where a 13-year-old girl Sita Reddy was run over by a car after a drunk driver swerved onto the pavement near her Chatsworth home, and dragged her under the car for about 100 metres. The driver was released on R500 bail.

Ndebele said that improved co-operation between the Department of Transport and the Department of Justice will see the country moving away from discretionary sentencing to mandatory sentencing which would in turn ensure that cases such as Sita’s received the attention they deserved. "Besides agony resulting from deaths of loved ones, road crashes result in unbearable costs to the poverty-stricken families and some of them cannot even afford funeral costs," Ndebele said.

He said that in KZN alone road crashes cost the department more than R2 billion, an amount that could be used to build more roads and bridges for communities. He said that the department has embarked on a number of initiatives in the province to ensure that all roads have a forgiving environment.

Last year we installed Intelligent Road Studs on the notorious Ulundi/Melmoth Road in northern KwaZulu-Natal to increase road visibility at night. Apart from this we are going to continue with our educational campaigns to increase road safety awareness. He said that if all this failed then enforcement would follow.

"In a few months time the department is going to introduce the point’s demerit system which will include, among other things, endorsing, suspending and cancelling the licences of drivers who continue to break our traffic laws," said Ndebele.

Meanwhile, traffic volumes in KwaZulu-Natal peaked at between 1500 to 2000 vehicles per hour today and are expected to increase later today. Traffic officials are out in full force on the province’s roads to ensure that motorists arrive safely at their destinations.

As part of the pre-Easter Operation Juggernaut clean-up for the period 26 March to 2 April 2004, motorists were charged for more than 37 000 various traffic offences by officers from the KZN Road Traffic Inspectorate (RTI) alone. 77 Drivers were arrested for drinking and driving and 84 vehicles were removed from the province’s roads for being in an unroadworthy condition. More than 17 000 vehicles and drivers were stopped and checked in 1 118 enforcement operations including speed checks, road blocks and overloading control exercises. During this period RTI officers worked a total of 9 209 hours and patrolled 122 723 kilometres.

Ndebele called upon all road users to continue to follow the rules and regulations of the road, to plan their trips properly in advance and be patient on the road. "It is when drivers and other road users are not patient that they ignore rules and cause accidents," he said.

Ndebele also called upon owners of public passenger transport vehicles such as taxis and buses to ensure that their vehicles are roadworthy before they embark on long journeys loaded with passengers. "Taxis and buses carry many of our people, it is thus important that owners and drivers ensure that their vehicles are safe at all times. We call on all our law enforcement officers to remove all taxis and buses that are not roadworthy from the road, they must not show any mercy, the safety of our people is not open for discussion," he added.

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