Cape Town - As Easter weekend draws closer, road safety organisations and motorists are concerned about the preparedness of the transport and traffic departments to respond to busy roads and avoid the familiar road carnage.
Following an increase in car crashes and fatalities over the past few weeks, the organisations said they would like the departments to do more in terms of enforcing road safety rules, including prioritising the safety of minors when structuring their road safety plans for the weekend.
Nizaar Marlie, the curator of online traffic group 1SecondLater, said: “For the past 10 years that we have been running our platform, we have noticed the tremendous spike in road accidents during the Easter period.
It seems that during this time of the year, people get caught up in a festive mood and forego basic road safety rules.
“From our young people who are fond of fast cars and speed, to our family models who like to travel to holiday destinations, but forgo buckling up and end up endangering their lives, or lose not only their lives but those of their children.
“This is a huge problem, I have been to more than 200 fatal accidents, and the majority of the minors I saw there laying dead would be kids who had not buckled up.”
Marlie said that apart from pushing a serious and direct campaign to ensure that motorists buckled up, he would also like to see traffic officials host rolling roadblocks, that would allow them to cover more ground and engage more motorists on the road.
“I also feel that officials should focus more on implementing measures to address speedsters, as opposed to settling for the cameras that are just a money-making scheme and do not directly influence motorists to not speed,” he said. Just last week, three children died when the vehicle they were travelling in collided with another car at a traffic intersection in Belhar.
The children’s father, Neville Links, said the family was devastated by the accident, and was struggling to come to terms with the loss of their children and the serious injuries his surviving son and wife sustained.
Road safety NGO South Africans Against Drunk Driving (SADD) is running a campaign aimed at encouraging motorists to buckle up when travelling.
SADD director Caro Smit said: “#ClickItOrTicket and #BuckleUp is all about getting everybody on the roads to buckle up or get a ticket, especially people in the back seat. We are working with the department of transport on this campaign.”
Automobile Association spokesperson Layton Beard echoed the sentiments of the other organisations, saying that the association wanted the department to focus on enforcing road safety rules.
“Instead of focusing on expired licence discs, officials should focus on checking speeding, reckless driving, distracted drivers, making sure children are buckled up safely, as well as making sure that vehicles out on the road are roadworthy and in good condition.”
In 2020, 34% of recorded road accident fatalities were children, meaning about 672 children up to nine years old died while being passengers in vehicles, according to the NGO Wheel Well, which focuses on road safety for children.
Wheel Well founder Peggie Mars said: “Easter is a wonderful time for families, but it’s sadly also when road traffic fatalities spike and children are particularly vulnerable. As we prepare for the Easter weekend, we are calling on all parents to make sure that their children are buckled up in appropriate car seats when they are on the road.”