Thokozani Mtshali
Arrive Alive’s billboard campaign to reduce deaths on South Africa’s roads this holiday season has been greeted with scepticism by many motorists.
The campaign was launched 14 months ago in conjunction with traffic departments, the Ministry of Transport and the South African Police Service (SAPS) in a bid to reduce road fatalities.
But the validity of the statistics issued by the campaign is questionable. On many busy roads and highways billboards record a score of common offences committed by motorists.
“Drivers not speeding, last week, 44%. Previous record, 39%,” reads the billboard on the N12 south of Johannesburg.
“I see those boards every day. But how do they come up with those numbers? I wonder where they get it. You hardly see a traffic officer checking speeding cars or checking the alcohol level among drivers,” said taxi driver Mdoda Mkhize. “I am always on the road. You never see anyone checking traffic flow. Traffic officers must show more concern, be more active to stop road deaths. This is like teaching our children about HIV/Aids.”
Arrive Alive representative Moira Haarhoff said the boards are updated once a week on days when there is a high traffic flow, and once a month outside the holiday period.
“It’s possible, if there is a shortage of traffic officials and equipment, you might find the same score on those sheets for some weeks,” she said.
“For statistics on deaths and accidents, we rely on the SAPS and for road offences and the general behaviour of motorists, we rely on traffic officers. Usually, they put up cameras and personnel monitor the situation. But you must understand, they can’t put an officer on every half a kilometre you have travelled.
“Ideally, we would like to see less and less people dying on our roads but we are just an awareness structure.”
Mkhize is not satisfied with this explanation. “Where do they put those cameras, and for how long? Did you ever see them?” he asked. “South Africa is not a country with highly sophisticated technology. This is just aimed for psychological affect on us but it’s not true.”
Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Traffic Services chief superintendent Conel Muckay said: “Our statistics are more of a census done once a week. Since it takes a while to go around changing the information on the boards, you find some boards with outdated information on them. But that does not mean we concoct our statistics. Why would we do that?
“The statistics are seldom accurate because surveys are done randomly and for a specific period. But those assumptions give a general idea of situation.”
Beyers Bresler of Auto & General believes Arrive Alive’s statistics reflect reality. “Our holidays are more dangerous than in most places in the world. I think Arrive Alive has helped a lot.
“There must be more billboards with more interesting adverts on the side of the roads. So if you drive to Cape Town or Durban, you don’t feel drowsy but you keep on reading because you don’t want to miss those adverts.”
Haarhoff hopes the campaign will reduce the carnage this holiday season. So far more than 700 people have died on the roads, about 120 of them children. The campaign will assess its success once its final report has been completed in March.