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Road toll: All action, no win

<b>NOT THE AVERAGE JOE DRIVER:</b> This truck crash in Cape Town could have killed dozens but the 'road safety' push targets ordinary drivers. <i>Image: CITY OF CAPE TOWN</i>
<b>NOT THE AVERAGE JOE DRIVER:</b> This truck crash in Cape Town could have killed dozens but the 'road safety' push targets ordinary drivers. <i>Image: CITY OF CAPE TOWN</i>
JOHANNESBURG - Little has been done to reduce the number of road deaths in South Africa, the Automobile Association has alleged.

Spokesman Gary Ronald said: "While South Africa is a signatory to the United Nations Resolution on the Decade of Action it is clear that little has been done to create change or prevent road deaths during the busiest times of the year."

The number of road deaths over Easter had been increasing since 2011.

60% DEAD MEN WALKING

Ronald added: "Despite the claim that the number of crashes on major routes declined, the number of deaths... has increased year-on-year since 2011."

The AA said 241 people were killed on the roads during the 2013 Easter holiday (March 28 to April 1), up from the 217 killed in 2012 and 151 in 2011.

"Figures show 60% of those killed are pedestrians," Roland said. "The UN Decade of Action was launched two years ago, and yet we are still waiting for the South Africa strategy to be formulated and introduced to the public.

"The question is why it's taking so long to get the strategy in place."

WRONG STRATEGY...

Wheels24 says: Have the authorities deliberately suppressed the number of pedestrian deaths to avoid alienating voters? Or is it a financial thing: there's not much point arresting an itinerant jaywalker unable to pay a fine.

And it's too late when he's dead.

Millions of man-hours have been used for road blocks, ostensibly checking for driving licences and sobriety - the real money-makers for local authorities and provincial coffers - but none, it seems, on educating non-motorised road users on the simple act of looking right, left and right again before heading across a busy road.

Camera speed-traps are simply cash machines.

...WRONG TARGETS

Frankly, Average Joe Driver should not be the road "safety" authorities' target here: 60% of the dead are pedestrians, a large percentage of the remainder are killed in taxis; others die in double figures in bus crashes.

Spend the money wasted on road blocks on mobile units manned by honest cops trained in the law and not just yahoos with guns, mark their vehicles clearly, and let them loose on the nation's highways with cameras and mobile computers linked to the vehicle registration database.

Then watch the death toll fall.
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