FESTIVE SEASON TRAVEL: Time to consider outlawing inexperienced drivers from drinking any alcohol
STATEMENT BY BRETT HERRON, GOOD MEMBER OF THE WESTERN CAPE PARLIAMENT
12th December 2019
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The annual migration season is upon us. Many South Africans are preparing to go away on holiday, or to return to their homes for the festive season.
It is a time of celebration but, for far too many, a time of tragedy and loss.
GOOD’s Brett Herron says that “a massacre is defined as ‘an act of killing a lot of people,’ and that’s exactly what is happening on our roads each year.”
Data from the Automobile Association released earlier this year shows that driver errors account for more than 90% of fatal incidents. “These drivers are not just killing themselves” said Herron. “The overwhelming majority of people who lose their lives in traffic accidents are passengers and pedestrians.”
As Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu pointed out some years back, most of the victims of our annual road carnage are poor. It is the poor who live alongside the fastest roads, and whose children travel unsafe routes to school, he said.
Whilst we appreciates government’s annual festive season focus on road safety, the annual body count calls for further structural measures to limit the carnage.
“Deaths from road accidents in South Africa are more than double the rate of the USA” said Herron, “and globally, road accidents are most common cause of death for children over 4 and young adults under 29. Alcohol is a factor in a disproportionate number of cases.”
Other countries are tackling these factors together by introducing laws radically restricting the amount of alcohol permissible in inexperienced drivers’ blood.
“Its time for us to move from advertising campaigns to decisive action. We must look at similar legal differentiation of experienced and inexperienced drivers in South Africa – as insurance car rental companies routinely do – to make our roads safer for drivers, passengers and pedestrians”.
Herron suggested that “a GOOD place to start would be to ban drivers’ of less than three or five years’ experience from drinking any alcohol at all.”
“We take this opportunity to wish everyone venturing onto our roads this festive season safe journeys and safe returns – and to appeal to all drivers for extra patience and consideration for others on our roads” said Herron.
Ends