Traffic officials ought to lead the way

I HAVE just read that fatalities on our roads during this past holiday period rose by 14 percent.

One is not surprised at all because the transport minister and her support staff only take action once a year to try to prevent the carnage on our roads.

How do the authorities expect drivers to obey the law for one month in the year, when they are allowed to drive without any respect for the rules of the road for 11 months of the year?

We travel on the highways west to east and back again, six days a week, and one can clearly observe the disregard for traffic rules and disrespect for other drivers and pedestrians.

The sad part is the traffic officials do not enforce the law. In fact, they are often the biggest culprits.

One sees them in the mornings when they are on their way to their morning meetings and they are late. They travel at crazy speeds with their blue lights flashing. There are big problems when the average car does not move out the way.

In the afternoons, at knockoff time when the traffic is bumper to bumper, you find the same traffic officials heading home travelling in the emergency lane, ignoring everyone not following the normal road rules and the taxis following them in the emergency lanes.

I wholeheartedly agree with Tom Lambe (“Road sense must start at home”, The Star Letters, January 18) and I also believe in visible road trafficking and for the officials to get out of their vehicles and enforce the rules of the road.

We are very quick to say our captains in the various sports that we all enjoy in South Africa should lead from the front. Sadly, we do not see this in our government.

Radiokop, Roodepoort