 
SPEECH BY THE KWAZULU-NATAL MEC FOR TRANSPORT, MR S’BU NDEBELE AT THE ROAD SAFETY DAY HELD AT CHATSWORTH4 April 2004 All protocol observed. Four years ago I came to Chatsworth and I addressed this very same crowd about the difficulties they faced. You spoke about essential services, and over the years I have noticed your campaign for a better life unfold and I congratulate you. I hope the small contribution I made towards making your life better took you a bit further. Today I am standing here again, but this time on a different note. Struggling for a better life is ongoing but it is a bigger struggle to stay alive – and making sure you stay alive on the roads and making your life better is what I am here for today. Road accident statistics indicate that the majority of people killed on our roads are pedestrians. In KwaZulu-Natal the majority of these pedestrians are killed in the Durban Region and specifically mostly in areas south of Durban. Chatsworth, south of Durban, was among one of the pedestrian hotspots. Pedestrians were not only involved in collisions on the freeway but in the urban and built up areas as well - this is from statistics we in the Department of Transport collected after the past December holiday period. During Easter in 1999, 34 people died on KZN roads, 65 in 2000, 101 in 2001, 62 in 2002 and 47 in 2003. Of the 47 people killed in 2003, 26 were pedestrians. This gathering today is a culmination of a province-wide programme that has already gone to many areas in the province. Our Inter-Faith Road Safety Programme forms part of the KZN Transport Department's mass mobilisation plan to spread the gospel of road safety in order to reduce the number of road deaths on the province's roads. This programme is derived from past road safety campaigns such as Siyabakhumbula ("We Remember Them") which was held during 1997 and proved highly effective. On Wednesday is Word Health Day and this year it has been dedicated to road safety. In fact the theme is "Road Safety is no Accident". We start off the international campaign in Chatsworth today, an area which is close to my heart, and area which suffered the brunt of apartheid. As I drove here today I looked at the people living here, I looked at your roads, your life. Imagine if there was no Group Areas Act, forced removals, we being forced to live in conditions where we could not mix with one another. But the people in Chatsworth have overcome their difficulties. I see people from all walks of life, people of all creeds in the audience here today and I am pleased. I am satisfied that these communities resemble the microcosm of the new South Africa. My job for the past decade was a tough one. Saving lives on the roads. We did it with the best that we had and I am confident that the policies and programme we have in place will continue. Our legacy will live on. Saving lives in not an easy task.. Just on Tuesday, Pubal and Cookie Reddy’s 13-year-old daughter Selina was knocked by a taxi. Today she is at the St.Augustine’s Hospital in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) with a broken pelvis and femur. Selina was returning from school when the collision occurred. She was accompanied by her friend Sershan who is in a satisfactory condition. As we head towards the Easter holidays the Department in conjunction with religious leaders from various faiths will be ensuring that the road safety message goes right down to grassroots level. I am here to do that today. We cannot afford to lose even one life on our roads. For the past decade I have stood before all of you and told you my dreams of creating and ensuring safer roads, fewer accidents and no accidents at all if I could help it and most importantly reducing the high levels of fatalities. We have all come a long way today in ensuring this. Every one of us should take responsibility for our actions on the road; every motorist should consider that they are pedestrians first; infrastructure design should be user friendly to avoid accidents and again I reiterate that accidents are avoidable if only each person values their live seriously. On Tuesday we launched our Easter Road Safety Campaign for 2004 where we outlined how we, as the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport has planned to ensure your safety on our roads during the coming weeks. Previous records indicate that the Easter period is the busiest for KwaZulu-Natal’s roads. High traffic volumes on the N3 corridor as well as the N2 North and South are expected. The increase in traffic volumes is further expected to rise with 14 April 2004 (Election Day), thus extending the Easter Holiday period. We remain committed to reducing deaths on our roads and every effort (i.e.) education, enforcement and engineering aspects have been fully integrated to ensure that the people of the province as well as our visitors are safe. The focus for this year’s campaign is on pedestrian safety, since almost 60% of the statistics account for pedestrian fatalities. Currently three radio adverts in Zulu, English and Afrikaans are being flighted to highlight the importance of pedestrian safety. Our Easter Road Safety Plans have been further structured and integrated to support both the United Nations Road Safety week, which runs from 5th to 11th April 2004. I would like to take this opportunity to personally invite each one of you to show your commitment to road safety by supporting this event. The focus on the concept of self-policing is being given priority to ensure that road users take the responsibility for safer roads and make road safety everybody’s business. This concept is reinforced through our Mpimpa hotline – 086 2211 1010. The aim of this line is ensure that road safety becomes everybody’s business by affording all road users the opportunity of reporting road users that break the law. As mentioned earlier, Easter this year coincides with our third democratic elections and this will see traffic volumes and road usage increase dramatically as compared to previous years. As the majority of our people will make use of public transport during this period, we will be specifically targeting all public transport vehicles through the efforts of specialized Public Transport Enforcement Unit. We will also clamp down on drivers of bakkies who use these vehicles to illegally convey passengers. Operation Juggernaut targeting heavy motor vehicles will also be in full force. We will also be supporting the election process. We will be assisting the SAPS at all election venues and will also provide support in areas where there are no traffic police. There are also several voting stations in new areas which will require traffic control. All traffic officers, from the most junior to the most senior, have been placed on 12 hour duty each day and on 24-hour stand-by as well. Leave will only be granted in exceptional cases. Our administration staff will also be working to support our operational staff and to ensure that all our uniformed staff are out on the roads. Zero Tolerance will apply as usual. Our Road Side Courts will be operational at Park Rynie, Umdloti, Cato Ridge and Bergville. I’m also pleased to announce that the Magistrate at Pinetown Magistrate's Court will also be on stand-by for specific serious traffic offences. Two Sunday’s ago a motorist already felt the sting of one of our roadside courts when he was fined R15 000 and his driving licence was endorsed for travelling at a speed of 180 kilometres per hour in a 120 zone. There will be several multi-disciplinary road blocks all around the province together with the SAPS, SANDF, local authority traffic agencies and other enforcement agencies that will target drunk driving, unroadworthy motor vehicles, overloading as well as crime in general. Some of the specific initiatives that we will be involved in during this period to ensure safety on our roads include the following. This is apart from the extensive enforcement and safety plan we have provided to the media and brought to public attention: DRIVER AWARENESS FOR LONG DISTANCE TAXI ASSOCIATIONS AND TOUR BUS OPERATORS This programme will be undertaken with all long distance taxi associations and tour bus operators. Aspects regarding vehicle fitness, pre-trip inspections, and the importance of tyres and overloading will be highlighted. The KZN Taxi council, the eThekwini Minibus Taxi Forum and the PTEU are also actively involved. In conjunction with this, members of our Community Road Safety Councils will also undertake taxi rank awareness campaigns. The communities will be reinforcing the message "bring our families safely during the Easter period" to the Public Transport Sector. ALCOHOL AWARENESS The "Sober is Safe" campaign and the "Omela Ngasekhaya" programme will also be undertaken to reinforce safer roads during the Easter Holiday period by reinforcing the messages that drinking and driving/walking is a crime. The "Sober is Safe" campaign will target hotels and pubs whilst the Omela Ngasekhaya programme will take place at taverns throughout the province. Again, more pedestrians die on our roads than drivers or passengers. We have thus embarked upon a holistic approach in which we will intensify our efforts to correct pedestrian behaviour, be it jay-walking, drunken walking or any other form of irresponsible behaviour in the same way as we do to drivers. In the final analysis, I want to re-emphasize the following: It is a crime to jaywalk. I thank you and wish you well over Easter.
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