It’s reported that about 20 per cent of all road accident deaths involve children. This amounts to a shocking number every year. Dangerous situations are considerably more serious whenever innocent children are involved.
For this reason, two concerned companies joined forces with the Mogale City Local Municipality’s Traffic Department, and decided to do something to alleviate the problem.
The companies involved are 3M, a large manufacturer of road signs, equipment, reflectives and so on; and the South African Road Federation (SARF), which attempts to increase road safety awareness through various programmes.
“We have identified ten schools in the Mogale City area which are in need of the Botnar programme,” said Basil Jonsson from SARF. Fondation Botnar is a Swiss-based company, whose late founder wished dearly to improve the world’s road safety standards. The Botnar Child Road Safety Challenge was formed, and six underdeveloped and developing countries were identified. SARF received roughly R3,5 million from Fondation Botnar to spend on a local town.
Mogale City was chosen because it was not as big as the larger cities, but not too small either. Ten schools, primarily in Kagiso, each with a higher than usual risk in terms of road accidents, were identified.
The three groups got together on 25 June at the Tsholetsega Public School for the start of the project. A new speed bump and a pedestrian crossing were installed outside the school at the same time that the three groups, along with other Mogale City officials, gathered inside. The children were taught all about road safety and watched some demonstrations. The group moved on to other schools as well to implement the rest of the project.
SARF will be supplying the engineering know-how, with 3M supplying all of the road safety equipment. Mogale City Traffic Department will be in charge of implementing everything and running the project.
“We have 63 patrollers from the Traffic Department who will work outside the schools every day, to make sure that the children cross the roads safely,” said Superintendent George Tekane from the Mogale City Traffic Department.
