Durban — As KwaZulu-Natal was rocked by three separate road carnages that claimed the lives of 21 people in two days, experts have lamented the lack of proper planning by the government to curb such incidents.
Johan Joubert, an expert in accident analysis from Traffic Accident Reconstruction Services, with a career spanning close to 30 years, said the government was reactive instead of being proactive.
This was a recipe for disaster, he warned.
“Unless they start introducing tight rules and make sure they are enforced, we will continue to witness such horrific accidents on our roads.
“There should be a deterrent in dealing with such horrific accidents that lead to the tragic loss of lives. To me, it appears that the government does not have a plan,” he said.
Joubert called on the justice system to mete out murder charges, instead of culpable homicide, to people who caused deadly road crashes.
“In other countries, such as Namibia, if one causes a road crash and people are killed, that person faces murder charges. Our country must also take this direction so that people respect the rules of the road,” he said.
Joubert also specialises in cause analysis, interpretation of the law relating to traffic accidents and traffic accident reconstruction, including the analysis of speed trends.
Asked if the road crashes were due to a lack of planning by the government, Johan Jonck, the spokesperson of Arrive Alive, said: “I would not be too fast to say so.
“Bear in mind that road safety is not a light switch that you can turn on and off. A speech by a government leader is not going to make the roads safer.
“To make our roads safer requires 24/7 attention and continuous dedication to rooting out corruption; maintaining roads; and enforcing the rules of the road.
“If offenders are allowed to get off the hook with a bribe, there are no consequences to transgressions or unworthy vehicles are allowed on the road, these failures will bite us now and in the future.”
Following the crashes on Saturday that left the province reeling, MEC for Human Settlements and Transport Siboniso Duma labelled the fatalities a “dark cloud hovering over the province”.
“We are shocked and in disbelief, mainly because the road accidents occurred in one weekend. We experienced this tragedy during the last weekend of Women’s Month. The sheer number of victims and circumstances under which the victims departed are just too ghastly to contemplate.”
In the first accident, 12 people died on the R622 Greytown road.
In a separate accident six people – all uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) members – died en route to Nkandla from Estcourt, on Saturday.
They were heading to an event to honour former president and MKP leader Jacob Zuma’s first wife, Sizakele MaKhumalo Zuma.
Also on Saturday, news broke that a Michaelhouse pupil Garth Finnemore, 8, and his parents, Gareth and Olivia, had tragically died in a collision.
Duma declared this week as a week of mourning.
“We are mobilising our chaplains and all religious leaders from the department who are based in municipalities to embark on a week of prayer. We must pray to God to give the families strength,” said Duma.
Amid the fatalities, Duma announced that his department would make some interventions for the grieving families.
He said a team of highly experienced officials will visit the grieving families.
“Each family is facing circumstances that are unique, and therefore, our response is tailor-made to help each family go through this ordeal in a manner that shows empathy,” he said.
He added that his department would consult with the families to ensure that the “departed souls” were provided with funerals.
His department would also be coordinating with Road Accident Fund visits to individual families to explain the packages of assistance provided by the Department of Transport.
“Working with the Department of Social Welfare, we have resolved to assign social workers to the affected families to provide continuous, psychosocial services during this period of grief,” said Duma.
WhatsApp your views on this story to 071 485 7995.
Daily News