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The truck stops here

“A TRUCK has rolled and lost its load of cooking oil just south of the Gillooly’s Interchange.

"Traffic is at a standstill and backed up for several kilometres, so choose alternate routes. Lanes will be closed for at least an hour longer as road crew clean the road surface…”

Aaahh. Here we go again. Gillooly’s seems to be death for trucks – I swear a truck rolls there or in the Geldenhuys Interchange at least twice a week.

Trucks heading for Durban or coming in from the coast, trucks heading for Mpumalanga or returning to the Big Smoke (The Big Dust at this time of year – ayeee, my sinuses!)… they filter through the interchanges east of Johannesburg, causing congestion, accidents and blockages.

The tale of the cooking oil incident – in which, I’ve just heard, one truck driver died – came on top of the devastating accident in Pinetown, on Field’s Hill.

“A KwaZulu-Natal Road Traffic Inspectorate spokesperson said the Pinetown accident occurred when the brakes failed on a truck belonging to Evergreen Transport. It took the off-ramp from the M13 at the bottom of Fields Hill and crashed into the four minibus taxis and a car at the intersection with Richmond Road.” (wheels24.co.za)

The driver, a 23-year-old Swazi national, has been charged with murder. I had little feeling for him one way or the other until I read that phrase, “when the brakes failed”. How often have we heard or read something similar?

I imagine a 23-year-old – so young! – apparently only a few days on the job (so I’ve been told, but I haven’t been able to verify this), in command of that huge rig, suddenly realising that he is careering out of control down that terrible hill.

I know the hill well; I have family in Pinetown and have driven it in a state of raw alert because a fog has descended, making it difficult to see, while the local traffic drives around you with a crazy assuredness at speeds that seem dangerously insane.

Why was this young man driving a truck with deficient brakes? That is surely not his fault. He will likely go to jail now; even if he doesn’t, he will have to live with the nightmare images and the knowledge of all those deaths for the rest of his life.

He would have to be a callous man indeed to be unchanged by that – and he does not seem to be; I saw that he burst into understandable tears when he appeared in court.

Apparently Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Jeff Radebe, visiting the scene in his role as acting president, said: " 'Our message from government is that we should leave no stone unturned in ensuring those who are guilty of causing such pain must be dealt with with the full might of the law.'

"He urged the judiciary to impose harsh jail terms on traffic offenders instead of a 'slap on the wrist'." (City Press, September 6 2013)

Who should get those harsh jail terms, minister Radebe: the drivers in charge of these weapons, or the people who should ensure that the drivers know their job thoroughly, that the vehicles are maintained in perfect condition, that the drivers are not under pressure to drive longer hours than is compatible with safety, that they aren’t paid so poorly that there’s a temptation to bypass the N3 toll road to save money?

Should the owner of the business that employed him and put him into a vehicle with less than perfect brakes not be standing in the dock right alongside him?

Since deregulation in the 1980s, we have relied increasingly on the trucking industry to transport goods around the country – by the end of the 1990s, I remember reading, things had turned around to the extent that 80% of goods were going by road, while rail dwindled.

We’ve paid a price for that policy decision: we have to fork out tax monies for road maintenance (and people who drive roads heavily used by trucks, in Mpumalanga, for example, can testify to the damage they cause); we have to cope with ‘stationary trucks’, trucks that roll and trucks that lose control, and the consequent damage to people and property… and the simple loss of time wasted in traffic jams.

Surely it’s time to think of other solutions, solutions that take a more global view of the way we move freight.

“South Africa’s freight-flow challenges, amid the imperative for urgent large-scale infrastructure investments, require innovative, mature approaches.

"Given the country’s high logistics costs, dense long-distance road corridors and significant growth forecasted in freight flows, a restructuring of the freight transport system and related investment is critical.

"The research illustrates clear opportunities for intermodal solutions where both road and rail can benefit, allowing South Africa to move closer to its growth ideals. Furthermore, solutions need to be found that optimise South Africa’s end-to-end supply chain, including the way that South Africa’s rail, road, inland terminals and ports complement one another to compete as a whole against other global supply chains.”

(Rail renaissance based on strategic market segmentation principles, JH Havenga,  Southern African Business Review Volume 16 Number 1 2012)

 - Fin24

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



 
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