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Invisible policing

DID you know that children are much more vulnerable to lethal head injuries than adults, because their heads are larger in proportion to their bodies?

It’s not something I’ve thought about before, but this little factoid came to my attention recently, when I was given the opportunity to read some of the scientific papers which will be presented at the the 32nd Annual Southern African Transport Conference (SATC 2013), from July 8-11 in Pretoria.

One of the papers, Perceptions and realities of vehicle speed around schools in Stellenbosch, by Tania Ackerman and Dr Marion Sinclair, looked at the behaviour of children using the roads around three schools in the Western Cape.

Speed limits were, of course, in force around these schools, and road traffic signs warned drivers about their proximity to a school, with appropriate speed limits in force.

But “Speed limits do not take the specific behaviour or characteristics of pedestrians into account, and the behaviour exhibited by the child pedestrians put them, at times, in direct danger”, the authors write.

If you’ve ever sat outside a school and watched with your heart in your mouth as the kids rush out after the last bell, you’ll recognise the picture painted in these dry academic words: “In all study areas children were observed engaging in potentially high risk behaviour, most notably crossing roads randomly (i e not at formal crossings), playing in the road, walking in the road itself (rather than on a pavement), taking little notice of traffic, pushing each other or pretending to push each other into oncoming traffic, and walking in large groups of children which spread out onto the active roadway.” 

Even when cars and trucks obey the lower speed limits around schools, the children are still at greater risk because their bodies are less sturdy than adult bodies.

Where an adult might escape serious injury when hit by a car doing sixty, a child might be killed – and they are, in numbers. Vehicle accidents are one of the top killers of South African children – many of them pedestrians.

But the two authors highlighted that both children and vehicles behave better when traffic officers are visible policing the roads. So an obvious way to bring deaths down is to put people in scary uniforms around our schools.

Which made me feel a little depressed. Having visible policing of traffic is the obvious solution for a lot of the deaths and severe injuries on our roads, but is it likely to happen, given our current traffic law enforcement paradigm?

When last did you see a traffic cop pull someone over for a moving violation? You haven’t seen anyone do that in years, have you – me neither.

We as citizens pay a lot for a law enforcement agency whose primary job is to enforce good, safe behaviour on our roads and keep all of us alive and well (the Johannesburg Metro Police Department’s budget rises into the billions, funded by our rates and taxes).

Instead, traffic policing seems to be a kind of revenue-collection agency (and a poor one at that – I read recently that under 20% of fines issued on Gauteng’s roads are collected, which, if true, makes a mockery of those hundreds of officers whose days are spent hiding under bushes with cameras aimed at roads that offer an open invitation to speed).

Another deadly factor is the state of our roads, yet another paradigm that doesn’t seem amenable to shifting.

Another SATC 2013 paper by Malcolm Mitchell, professional adviser: South African Road Federation, stands out – and once again, gives rise to a slightly depressed mood.

In Towards Sustainability of the South African Road Network, Mitchell describes the problems plaguing road infrastructure in our country, including lack of professional capacity and expertise; inappropriate interference by politicians in executive functions; and poor financial management of road funds.

He writes: “Road maintenance in South Africa is possibly adequately funded at the moment but the actual expenditure is very ineffective and inefficient resulting in significant wastage and unnecessarily high levels of deterioration with the resulting asset loss and non-sustainability of the roads.”

Anyone who has spent time on any roads outside the major metros (including the ones that link them, like the N2 between Durbs and Joburg) will be nodding in agreement about the high levels of deterioration. 

Not long ago, I found myself yet again doing the pothole ballet in the mining belt of Mpumalanga, where vehicles have to do an imperfectly choreographed dance from one side of the road to the other to avoid potholes deep enough to shelter alien forms of life.

You can’t help wondering how much money is spent by companies and private individuals on dealing with the inevitable damage incurred on such roads, from bust tyres to fatal accidents.

All because money that is in the kitty – money that you and I contributed – is not being adequately, effectively and accountably spent! It makes my blood boil.

“In the light of the current situation regarding the management and condition of much of our road network there is a compelling case for a new paradigm in respect of institutional arrangements for the provision of roads in this country,” Mitchell writes, using that word again.

Time for a new paradigm on our roads, from maintenance to enforcement – no kidding, mate!

 - Fin24

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