Curbing the ongoing carnage on our roads needs drastic and practical responses from our hand-wringing traffic and road authorities.

The maniacal habits of South African road users leaving scores dead and limbs were strewn across our highways can no longer be left unattended.

The powers that be appear to be clueless about getting to grips with the mayhem.

Ministerial entourages visiting accident sites and hospitals, and grocery handouts to surviving family members with feeble promises of corrective action plans smothered in vagueness, are nothing more than futile public relations exercises.

It is time to get down and dirty to restore order. Apart from the menacing truck drivers running amok, the public transport sector especially needs urgent intervention.

Spare a thought for the thousands of voiceless and powerless taxi and bus commuters subjected daily to terror-filled hell runs to work and home.

They deserve safe, stress-free travel, but nobody on top of the road safety totem pole seems to care a fig about their plight.

So here’s a radical suggestion to force a mindset shift – wishful thinking though it may be.

Traffic and transport decision-makers should be ordered to lock away their luxury SUVs for a few months and forced to join ordinary commuters on their daily shuttles.
Pass a temporary Parliamentary Act if that is what it will take.

What better way for the movers and shakers to experience first-hand the severity of the dilemma fearful commuters face every single day, ferried like cattle at breakneck speeds in often dilapidated vehicles held together by duct tape, wire and string by possessed drivers with no inkling of their responsibilities of safely transporting mothers, fathers and children to their destinations.

Compelled to take a ride on the wild side for a good period of time, crammed in the back of taxis or buses humming ‘Nearer my God to Thee’ with the rest of their wide-eyed fellow travellers, will surely do wonders in helping the decision makers to again find their religion and prompt more decisive action.

They know what to do. Come down hard on truck, taxi and bus owners who turn a blind eye to their unroadworthy vehicles and reckless drivers.

Relentlessly confiscate vehicles and withdraw permits – permanently. Prosecute those traffic officials who blatantly put a stamp of approval on unroadworthy vehicles, effectively signing death
warrants of so many innocent road users.

The existing attitude of profits before people can no longer be tolerated. The public demand that authorities for once take ownership and implement ruthless measures to deal with errant transport owners and cowboy drivers on our highways and byways.

This must also apply to the road maintenance sector, where those in charge should be held accountable for the many deaths caused by their lack of performance.

Taking strongarm action against especially the transport ‘mafia’ will, of course, have serious consequences as they are a law unto themselves.

That is what the transport minister and other stakeholders must now decide – who rules the country, the profit makers or the public protectors?

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