Festive season road rage

THERE'S a different dynamic in Joburg at this time of year. It’s rather pleasant, actually; the population halves as swarms of people head ‘home’ to KZN or Limpopo or the Eastern Cape or swoop on Plett in their luxury vehicles.

The rest of us luxuriate in empty streets and malls and cinemas. (Although the sudden drop in clientele means some places, like 44 Stanley Avenue, virtually close for the duration – dammit, Bean There, I’m perishing for some decent coffee!)

The stay-at-homes seem to feel a vast sense of winding-down and slowing. Traffic turns sleepy; sometimes it feels like I’ve time-warped to my rural childhood, where simply ‘going for a drive’ on the weekend was entertainment, and, as David Kramer once perceptively noted, people parked alongside the national highway just to watch occasional travellers swish by.

This loosening and relaxing translates into quite dangerous behaviour on the roads. Like the man who sailed across my path as I was going through a green robot (green for me, not him), chatting animatedly to his companions; or the driver waddling comfortably over a solid white line without even indicating, at a speed of 30 k's an hour (only his slow speed enabled the driver into whose space he ambled to take evasive action); they believe they’re surrounded by some magical bubble of protection because ‘it’s holiday season’, I think.

Of course, they’re also accustomed to breaking the law without thought and without consequence (they just do it far more snappily during the remainder of the year). The ‘spid cops’ seem to do nothing but that – sit behind cameras on broad, two-laned roads where there’s a long straight stretch that makes for good pics and tempts the motorist to speed.

Then they send out notices which are dubious in the first place (they should be served in person or via registered post, I believe) and certainly in my experience arrive as late as four months after the original offence – long after the local post office has piled the actual infringement what-nots up in a corner (I saw a pile of several hundred in just one PO recently) and sent them back.

So motorists are denied not only their chance to pay ‘half-price’; they’re also denied their legal rights to contest the charge, to tell the traffic authorities that they were not the driver, and the like. They’re denied their right to timeous notification of an offence (I think it has to be within 40 days of the incident?) – and I don’t think this system does anything to change their behaviour.

It’s like a puppy, you know: you can’t expect him to connect the chastisement to the offence if it takes place much later in time. We’d be better off with fewer fines being issued, as long as they come from one of those scary uniformed people jumping out into the road and waving you down. Bet you drive more sedately and righteously after one of those experiences – I know I do.

Driving to Balfour to pay a fine

I’m told only something like 14% of fines issued by the JMPD are paid. I’m not surprised – I’ve struggled with this late notification thing myself, although I’m a fairly law-abiding person. If I’m issued a fine out of town, by a traffic officer in person, I’ll go out of my way to pay it. I once drove all the way to Balfour because I could not figure out how to pay a fine by EFT.

The magistrate was shocked; “I will squash this fine,” he told me, because I’d taken a whole morning out of my life and paid both petrol and tolls to fork out the R400 admission of guilt!

So motorists ignore the late notifications, slow down at all the spots traffic officers like to set up their cameras if they remember to do so, and learn to disrespect the law.

Twice a year, at Christmas and Easter, the cops trumpet their successes: “150 drunk drivers arrested in road blocks!” but you’d be hard put to it to find someone who’s been fined for any kind of moving violation in between the festive seasons. (You could make a nice income fining people for jumping a red robot within 500 metres of my front door, but it’s not as easy as sitting behind a camera, is it.)

Politicians and road traffic officials express their shock that motorists don’t behave on the roads – gimme a break, wherever in the world they do behave it’s not because of some inborn moral sense but because there’s visible, body-in-the-street policing.

Judging by the round-the-braai stories, some headway has been made against bribe-soliciting by traffic cops, but it happened with such predictability and frequency in the past that many, many motorists retain a sense of contempt and disrespect for the traffic police. The current model of camera-enforcement, coupled with the ridiculous and utterly ineffective AARTO fine system, is unlikely to do anything but deepen that disrespect.

And that’s a very dangerous state of affairs – no way to reduce the death toll on our roads. Isn’t it time we demanded that traffic cops do the work they’re employed and paid to do, visible and active policing of moving violations instead of just speed, spiced with occasional swoops on drunk driving? Isn’t it time this nonsensical fine system was fixed so it incentivises observation of traffic laws? For heaven’s sake, we can do better than this!

*Mandi Smallhorne is a versatile journalist and editor. Views expressed are her own. Follow her on Twitter.