The inspirational story of President Nelson Mandela’s leadership in Africa has left a historical hallmark on international political action. His personal struggle as well as the political action for equality in South Africa has placed Mr Mandela as one of the most inspiring leaders worldwide. His personal association with road safety is rooted in tragic losses due to road crashes his foundation is implementing road safety solutions.
As we continue to celebrate the 93rd birthday of the beloved founding father of South African democracy, Nelson Mandela, it is worth pausing to reflect how many aspects of our lives mirror his.
In 1969, when Mr Mandela was serving life imprisonment on Robben Island, he received news that his eldest son Thembekile had been killed in a road crash. To add to the pain and loss, he was not allowed, as a “lifer”, to attend the funeral of his own son.
As a retired president, Mandela was to experience a similar loss last year when, as South Africa celebrated the opening of the Fifa World Cup, his great-granddaughter Zenani died tragically in a road accident.
Writing about the loss of his son in his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela expresses the feelings of many today who have lost loved ones in road carnage when he said: “I do not have words to express the sorrow, or the loss I felt. It left a hole in my heart that can never be filled.”
On April 12 in London, we joined members of the Mandela family, represented by Zindzi and her daughter Zoleka, and the Commission for Global Road Safety to launch the Zenani Mandela Scholarship for Road Safety. The scholarship will contribute to the UN Decade of Action. We used the occasion to remind the world that while it is the living who close the eyes of the dead, it is the dead who must open the eyes of the living.
Launching the scholarship, Zoleka Mandela, the late Zenani’s mother, said: “A crash robbed me of my daughter – a beautiful, bright 13-year-old who was full of energy and hope for the future. I will never recover from this, nor will my family.
“My heart is already broken, but what makes this even worse is that so often road accidents are preventable. We must all support the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety. It is our duty to end the suffering.”
The scholarship reflects the ethos and values of the Mandela family and Nelson Mandela Foundation in helping young people to make a difference to their own communities and society as a whole.The scholarship was established to inspire young leaders of South Africa to join a global movement, as represented by the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011 to 2020, which aims to save millions of lives over the next 10 years.
The successful candidate is given the opportunity to learn, with and from other talented professionals from around the world, with the common aim of improving road safety, and to develop their expertise in all key aspects of road-safety management and policy-making for the communities of South Africa. The first recipient of the scholarship is Sianne Abrahams from Cape Town.
By all accounts, the death of about 1.3 million people every year on the world’s roads is fit to be described as an epidemic. By all accounts, the death of some 14 000 people every year, 1 000 people every month and no fewer than 40 people every day on South Africa’s roads must also be described as an epidemic.
On May 11, South Africa joined the rest of the world when we officially launched the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011 to 2020 in Boksburg. This Decade of Action for Road Safety is a global declaration of war against road accidents and fatalities.Unless we act now, we can predict that road accidents will become the leading cause of premature deaths and disabilities for children and young people.Fortunately, while we can predict, we can also prevent. We can save millions of lives with more commitment to road safety.
It is time for action.
Drunk driving is a major contributory factor to road crashes and road deaths in South Africa. It is for this reason that the Department of Transport is considering a total ban on alcohol use for drivers.
Since May, no fewer than 10 000 drivers have been being screened every month for drinking and driving.Other interventions include South Africa’s soon-to-be-implemented National Road Safety Strategy and Action Plan 2011 to 2020. The strategy will focus on better use of human and financial resources, across all spheres of the government, to address road deaths.
To achieve this, each province, each district municipality and each local municipality will report every month on the number of road accidents occurring in their area, what the causal factors were and how these were being addressed.As part of the Department of Transport’s long-term strategy to improve driver behaviour and competence, steady progress is being made towards ensuring that road safety education forms part of the life-skills curriculum at schools. This will ensure that every Grade 11 pupil will have a learner’s licence and every 18-year-old a driving licence.
The programme has already commenced at certain schools in Mpumalanga, North West, Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.It is also in place at the University of Zululand and Walter Sisulu University in the Eastern Cape.Road safety is not what you do to a community; road safety is what you do with a community. Therefore, community-driven road safety through community road-safety councils must become the primary driving force of this Decade of Action.
Our yardstick during this decade is going to be what communities are doing about road safety in their respective areas.A number of current road-safety initiatives that will continue include the National Traffic Intervention Unit launched in April, regular departmental meetings with traffic chiefs and licensing officials, as well as amendments to road traffic legislation.
The department will also host a summit, as part of the consultation process, ahead of the national rollout of the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) Act and the points demerit system, and will soon announce details on the provision of a more secure, tamper-proof driving licence card.
In a speech delivered in 2009, Madiba said: “We can change the world and make it a better place. It is in your hands to make a difference.” It is in this context that we call on South Africans to take action now and make every day a Nelson Mandela Day.l Sibusiso Ndebele is Minister of Transport.
Written by: Sibusiso Ndebele