The multimillion-rand Arrive Alive campaign has failed to reduce the carnage on South Africa’s roads and analysts say citizens will have to play a far larger role in cutting fatalities.
Road fatalities rose 25% in December compared with December 2001.
Last year Minister of Transport Abdullah Omar claimed fatalities had dropped 6,8% over the festive season compared with 2000/01. Fatal crashes had dropped 9,1%, he said, proving that his department’s Arrive Alive campaign was on its way to reaching its target of reducing the road death toll by 5% a year.
But now these figures are being questioned as the optimism engendered by the apparent success of the Arrive Alive campaign then is replaced by pessimism and accusations about what went wrong this holiday season.
Moira Winslow, chairperson of the Drive Alive action group, says the Arrive Alive campaign has failed because more than 1 000 people died this December.
Mike Mabasa, a transport analyst and chief executive of Vutleketli Interventions, a transport consultancy, says though Arrive Alive was not a total failure, the campaign has serious problems that it has to correct.
”The government needs to change the campaign’s strategy because it is outdated. The campaign has been relying heavily on the media to convey it’s messages. But a lot of people don’t read the paper or have access to the media. Others have become desensitised to the message. The government should embark on another strategy to reach more people.”
Ashref Ismail, spokesperson for Arrive Alive, is pleased that the campaign achieved a much better reporting rate this year. Just 50% to 52% of accidents were reported in the past few years. This year 95% of all accidents were reported, he says.
Gary Ronald, of the Automobile Association, says that the Arrive Alive campaign wasn’t a failure, ”but it wasn’t a success either”.
Winslow says the lack of traffic officers is a major reason for the high death toll. ”There are only about 12 000 traffic officers. Research done by road officials shows that South Africa needs almost 70 000 traffic officers to patrol the roads efficiently.”
Innocent Mpe, spokesperson for the Department of Transport, blames badly trained traffic officials for the carnage on the roads. He says traffic officials often just check speed, but neglect to check drivers’ fitness to be behind the wheel, their alcohol levels or if their vehicles are roadworthy.
S’bu Ndebele, KwaZulu-Natal’s MEC for Transport, told Sapa this week that motorists need to be scared to break the law. ”The South African motorist is not intrinsically more murderous or more reckless than their counterparts overseas,” he said.