Dealing with appalling driving on roads an absolute priority
THE holiday season is over and schools and factories have reopened.
Getting back to normality means the resumption on our roads of the acute traffic congestion that we’ve been experiencing for some time. And adding to our traffic woes is the appalling standard of driving.
Dealing with congestion challenges requires a longer-term solution on a huge scale to be addressed by our traffic engineers.
Poor driving standards on the other hand require immediate attention. This is where we look to our Traffic Department for driver education and law enforcement. But where are our traffic police?
On December 18 you published a letter from reader Markus Brajtman who asked a number of pertinent questions about our Traffic Department. I’ve been waiting for answers to his questions, but sadly there has been no response from our traffic officials. Surely the public have a right to a response to a question on matters public!
Brajtman, like countless concerned Capetonians, is troubled by the brazen lawlessness on our roads, ranging from dangerously wild kombi taxi drivers to owners of upmarket flashy cars.
It surprises me daily how many vehicles carry no licence registration plates, cross solid barrier lines, give no signal before changing lanes, ignore traffic prohibition signs and speed like maniacs on our freeways.
I ask again: where are the traffic police? We may be lucky to see them sometimes sitting in their patrol cars under a tree alongside a freeway. We once heard about traffic police “ghost cars” which invisibly roam our roads and we see enhanced camera trapping of speedsters; all good and well… but our traffic police need to be visible, on motorcycles and on point duty in and among us.
We need not only vigilant and visible punitive intervention by the police but a dynamic, creative, preventive educational campaign on the roads. Law enforcement and education go hand in hand and need to be visible.
What we need at the root of our problems is a radical rethink and shake-up of our municipal traffic management practices and this should start with some answers to our questions, followed by the unfolding of a new vision and plan on the part of the responsible councillors and the city traffic department.
The public has a right to higher standards of policing service. What we’re getting is simply not good enough. The higher cost of improved services will be far less than the present unacceptably huge cost of deaths and injury on our roads.
Cape Town’s high standing internationally owes nothing to our road traffic management. Councillors and traffic police, think about it and let us know your plan for change. Alderman Gordon Oliver Pinelands