Road safety is once again the buzzword as the country is headed towards what is expected to be a crazy period, with millions taking to the roads over the next three weekends, which all happen to be long weekends. Traditionally, South Africans use such weekends for long trips, be it for holidaying, visiting family or other pursuits.
The first of the trio of these long weekends is Easter, which often gives traffic authorities all sorts of headaches, and is preceded by campaigns to ramp up road safety awareness.
Easter this year is expected to have increased volumes of traffic on the roads, especially routes to the north of the country, with the biggest church in the land, the Zion Christian Church, holding its first Easter pilgrimage at its headquarters in Moria, east of Polokwane, in Limpopo, since the outbreak of Covid-19.
The church held what amounted to a trial run during its annual September (African new year) conference last year, when it allowed a very limited number of pilgrims, well under half of its membership, to gather at the holy city.
The ZCC has a vast membership, not only in the country but across Southern Africa, many of whom will be eager at the prospect of going to the headquarters for the first Easter pilgrimage since 2019. That alone will see congestion on the main routes, especially the N1 to
Limpopo.
The Easter weekend will then be followed by the Freedom Day long weekend and thereafter the May Day long weekend.
It all calls for increased road safety awareness all around. In fact, South Africa needs year-long, everyday promotion of road safety at the rate we have been going with the average daily carnage on our roads.
It calls for sound planning around the flow of traffic and safety on the roads by all concerned, including the humble pedestrian. Statistically, such peak traffic periods make for horrific reading in as far as the deathtoll is concerned, with pedestrians often high up among the casualties.
As expected, the Department of Transport and provincial authorities announced their grand plans this week – which unfortunately sounds the same year in, year out – with the hope that there will be some marked improvement in behaviour, which has left our roads with the dubious distinction of being among the deadliest in the world.
We hope that previous campaigns and the study of the results have armed traffic authorities with valuable know-how to render our roads a tad safer.
We simply cannot go on like this.
Despite every country being unique, it would also be foolhardy to try and reinvent the wheel when there are international best practices that could come in handy if applied to similar conditions on our roads.
We wish our readers and everyone a happy and blessed Easter, and all road users safe travels to and from their destinations over the next three weeks.
Let’s also all endeavour daily to make our roads safe for everyone.
