JOHANNESBURG – Easter weekend is marked religious period in our calendar, Christians are often ferried from one province to the next to commemorate the death and celebrate the rising of Jesus Christ.

This period is characterised by high traffic volumes for respective religious groups, holiday makers as well as the normal transporting of goods from one point to the other using different transport modes. This high demand puts a tremendous strain on all the main arterial routes within the province with traffic patterns peaking on Thursday, Friday (Good Friday) and Saturday when they return back to the province.

This period is also characterized by a sharp increase in hitchhiking pedestrians movement particularly on provincial and other routes which often resulting in unsafe road usage.

It is for this reason that as a responsible department we had to put measures in place to ensure that accidents and fatalities are curbed, but we must acknowledge that no strategy or plan can work without road users changing their own behaviour on the road.

These measures include;

• Free and voluntary testing of public passenger transport at 50 Vehicle Testing Centres across the province
• Intensified traffic law enforcement operations by all law enforcement agencies targeting all traffic violations such as random alcohol testing, alcohol blitz, drug testing, roadside check points, unroadworthy operations, overloading, seat belt compliance, Illegal drag racing and excessive speeding.

Motorists are warned that the three main traffic violations that are punishable with immediate arrest with no fine or admission of guilt remains, driving under the influence or alcohol or drugs, excessive speeding as well as reckless and negligent driving.

According to the statistics on Road Traffic offence survey conducted by The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) in 2010, the most common causes of road traffic crashes are:

• Jay walking.
• Excessive Speeding
• Fatigue
• Speaking or texting while driving on the cellphones
• Not wearing seat belt
• Driving under the influence of alcohol
• Reckless and Negligent driving

Over the years statistics have shown that people who continue to contribute to the high number of statistics of those that perish in our roads are pedestrians. This is also due to ignorance and negligence, people just cross the road without looking at traffic lights, cross the road with their ear and head phone, jaywalking etc.

Measures are in place to ensure road safety, but if we can all act responsible and obey all the rules of the road, death tolls on our roads can be reduced drastically. Behavioral change by both motorists and pedestrian alike is vital by observing the following principles;

• Fatigue kills, exercise periodic rests for long distance trips
• Plan your trip accordingly to allow for road side checkpoints
• Wearing of seat belt, no overtaking on the yellow lane is for your safety
• Loading and offloading of passengers on the freeway is a punishable offence
• Pedestrians to always use bridges for their safety and motorists alike

Faith Mazibuko is the MEC for Community Safety in Gauteng