Dear Leader, President Zuma - Road carnage

On a breakfast program this morning our President gave a solemn undertaking that citizens who have had useful ideas spurned in the past should come forward and elaborate. He guaranteed that these ideas would be reviewed as the current National Plan is intended to be fully inclusive.

Road Carnage

On 23 December 2010, the networks carried yet another story about the carnage on our roads. Some 20 persons had perished in a taxi pile up. Since that date the carnage has continued unrelentingly. By 27 Dec 2001 the number of persons killed was over 900.

The point to be made is that we are world leaders in the business of killing and maiming human beings on our roads, and have been for many years.

And for all these years we have indulged ourselves in crying, moaning, groaning … etc about the problem whilst perpetuating stratagems that have always been doomed to failure.

In late 2003 a certain female educator was accorded an audience with the functionary, charged with responsibility for Road Safety stratagems, at Department of Transport.

The then ailing Minister, Dullah Omar, had expressed great interest in what she had to offer, to the extent of extending her an invitation to attend a Road Safety symposium that he sponsored.

She had an educational product, devised over a long period, titled “RoadSafe”. It was multifaceted, and Outcome Based Education aligned. It rested on certain fundamental realities including –

a) current stratagems, prosecuted under Arrive Alive, were guaranteed to be ineffective (that much was already just about agreed by all except Arrive Alive itself);

b) concomitantly “more police”, “harsher penalties” and other “let’s be more draconian” measures were also doomed to failure;

c) the reason being, the simple but fundamental one, that the whole problem was steeped in a deviant road use culture;

d) which culture needed to be addressed on all fronts, starting in the schools where being “RoadSafe” should be embedded as a subject like any other.

As a starting point she had devised a board game for children as “tactile” experience is so important in a child’s learning experience.

The product however encompassed an approach that would involve all sectors of society as a “national’ commitment to “change road use culture” to one that was “RoadSafe” so that the concept, name and attitude became as natural as breathing over time; ingrained, embedded in the psyche of upcoming drivers in particular.

The paradigm proposition was that to continue as we were was equivalent to treating acne or other skin disorder with soap and creams when the underlining cause is a blood disorder.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein

Her product had received the enthusiastic endorsement of the CSIR. That’s right. This important scientific government agency gave the “RoadSafe” its full endorsement.

The good lady was shown the door, after a short sharp lecture by the relevant female functionary at DOT, that she should understand that “we have our own programs …”

Eight (8) years have now been lost. During that time the road use culture has not changed one jot and thousands of people have been killed, injured, mothers widowed, children orphaned.

CSIR filed its recommendation. Minister Omar has sadly passed on. The “RoadSafe” concept/brand

sits on a computer in a suburban home in Pretoria, whilst mayhem rules on our roads.

What has also happened since the date she was shown the door is that an entity titled the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) has come into existence. Road carnage has continued. Interviewed by Jeremy Maggs on eTV on the 28th Dec 2011, the Acting CEO of the RTMC promised "viciousness" as a strategy to the problem. God help us Mr President! Maggs was constrained to point out to him that it was road use culture that was/is the problem!

So Mr President, might we take you up on your word, and draw your attention to this instance where being "unconnected politically" guaranteed that your useful voice as a citizen remained unheard.

 Current stratagems are proving hopelessly ineffective. The cost to the country needs no elaboration. It is horrendous on every count. This was predicted at the time the good lady was shown the door by the functionary at the Department of Transport.

Mr President, also please note that when we submit ideas to ANC branches, we do not receive so much as an acknowledgment, ever!

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PostScript --- this was submitted to the President's Office, ANC Head Office, Gauteng Branch and SABC 2 on 21-22 Nov 2011. Not so much as an acknowledgement was received as at 27 Dec 2011. The SABC 2 breakfast show was thus no more than yet another pantomine, We are voiceless on this new animal farm.

In the meantime the death toll for the Xmas period was over 900 killed and thousands injured as at 27 Dec 2011.