Automotive madness – speed kills

I have been driving on the North Coast for a number of years, and have noticed that over the last few years things are starting to become a little scary.

The average speeds are consistently above the limit, parking anywhere seems to be a right and general bad behaviour appears to be becoming the order of the day.

This is not specific to any type of vehicle, so don’t think I am referring to taxi’s and the like, as I’m not. However the more serious offenders are usually the pavement pounders that are better suited to the streets of Sandton.

I travel a fair amount, and as I use a double-cab bakkie, I avoid travelling quickly as the thing simply was not designed for it.

Don’t get me wrong, it sure can go quickly however, I consider it to be a risk when doing so, and more often than not the risk is to others and not only myself. These big 4X4 bakkies with a solid rear axle are using technology that is literally hundreds of years old, and old is not always best.

The same technology was successfully used in ox-wagons!

The vehicle I drive is a Ford ranger 3.2 turbo diesel, and it is far faster than it should be.

The thing can easily breeze past the national road speed limit of 120 kilometres per hour and could easily go fast enough to land me in jail and without a licence forever.

Should these vehicles be governed to a maximum speed? I once drove a Hummer H3, and it could not do more than 140 kilometres per hour, it had been governed to that speed and the ECU simply said “no thanks, go to jail and don’t collect your R200”.

There is a stretch of highway on the North Coast which is literally the Autobahn of South Africa.

So as to not upset the apple cart, I shall keep the stretch anonymous.

I travel this lovely piece of road daily on my way to work, and regularly have cars, bakkies, trucks and taxi’s blast past me.

It can be a bit like trying to watch Nascar, horror and whiplash combined.

I have no idea how this is tolerated, and after nearly four years of the same pattern, it still continues unabated.

I enjoy speed, and I think that most do.

The issue is that most of the vehicles on our roads should be scrapped, and some drivers have questionable qualifications, shown by their knowledge of the rules of the road and their handling of an automotive weapon.

This speed can only work with the right equipment and training, and generally speaking (and I include myself) we as South African’s don’t have the required training for speed. Never mind that it is illegal.

I don’t mind a speed-suited and well-maintained vehicle testing the limit of the law, rules are there to be followed but also to be tested.

I do however find the alarming speed on our roads concerning, especially when overtaken at pace by an open bakkie with workmen on the back, or a poorly maintained vehicle with children on the backseat.

I would say that I am passed by a vehicle doing more than 160 kilometres per hour four times a week, and I am being really, really conservative.

At least once a week there will be a vehicle somewhere between 160 and lifetime incarceration, although I am sure they were all late for childbirth or last rights.

I know I won’t like it, in fact I would hate it, however the only way forward might be to impose annual COR inspections (legal ones) and actually trap for speeding?

Rather than imposing yet another government tax on imports or domestic rates increases or fiddling with the PAYE scales, maybe we should first control the roads and vehicles on it? Maybe that’s too difficult. In the meantime hold onto your hats as they come by!

Download The North Coast Courier mobile app, now available free from the Apple iStore and on Google Play, for IOS and Android phones.