This morning we experienced an excellent example of the thing bugging Alexx Zarr so much he just had to write about it. Coming home from a celebratory breakfast, we were stationary in the left-only lane at a red traffic light. A taxi full of passengers came around us from the straight-only lane to turn left. The robot, remember, was red. And as this intersection is at the top of a hill, the taxi driver had limited visibility of oncoming traffic. Fortunately there was not a tragic ending to this story. But maybe there was. I found myself sadly shaking my head. Not caring enough to bother to hoot. Another example of Drift, the slide to previously unacceptable standards. The excellent comedian Marc Lottering jokes that for Johannesburgers, traffic lights are merely “suggestions”. We laugh because it’s true. But start unpacking SA road deaths, the avoidable carnage on our roads and the smile disappears. As Alexx Zarr shares with us below. – AH
By Alexx Zarr*
Doubting Thomas. That is me. Often Alexx is my alias and Thomas my call name.
Every time I hear or read an explosive headline about road carnage during the December / January recess, I find Thomas breaking down my door. “What the hell are these people saying / writing? Every day about 50 people die on South African roads. If the average vehicle numbers per unit of road increases, then so will the number of death certificates. Do they not get it? This is not an aberration; it is normal. This is how we do it for 365 /365. And let’s add in the 80-odd other folk we kill with things other than our cars.”
Here is the story line. Depending on whose data you would like to believe, in 2011 between 14 000 and 25 0000 people were killed in South African road accidents. There is no data yet for 2012, although official sources tell us the numbers are down. These are large numbers of dead people. On a daily basis between 38 and 68 people die on South African roads (average is 53). This is a crazy number. Add the number of people murdered in 2011/11 (16,000) and we have the total inhabitants of a small town (30,000) cut down by violence. This is a war.
Earlier in 2013, a total of between 6,600 and 7,000 American soldiers had died in the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts. In over ten years of real war, America lost less than half of what we lose in a year on our roads. Can that be? What are we doing about it?
A news headline on 24 December 2013 shouted, “855 people killed since start December”. I assume the data has a two-day lag; that implies we have 22 days to measure road deaths. Without making any allowance for increased traffic flow from mid-December to mid-January, I would have predicted that the number of deaths for 22 days would be about 843 on the lower limit, and 1,175 on the average. The data tells us we are doing well.
There will be between 345 and 480 additional road accident related deaths by the end of December, and between 613 and 855 for the period 22 December and end first week of January.
Similarly to assuming a single swallow makes a season, so rolling out ad hoc, cobbled together campaigns to reduce road accident deaths for holiday periods is a nonsense. The same as I can, sadly, guarantee that about 50 to 60 people will die on our roads, every day, I can also predict that any road traffic improvement solution that is non-systemic, not enduring, not world-class and not obdurately enforced will change little.
Politicians and their mandarins will talk-talk. They will helicopter in to hot spots and appear in day-glow vests in front of cameras talking about processes, plans, campaigns and the like. The dead, the broken and the left-overs will have to make the best of a bad situation, till next time.
Do not forget the 80 to 90 people murdered each day, either. I am sure that the rate goes up at this time of the year. No doubt, liquor oils the nature of man to kill another, and with larger numbers of people at home and in other social milieus, there are many opportunities to do so.
And while we are at war with one another, those we have elected to look after our interests, that we have entrusted to ensure we are protected from each other, will ask for our crosses. Those who have not yet had an opportunity to create a better life for all will also solicit for our crosses, promising they will be different.
Fellow citizens, my tagline is that we have to do it for ourselves. Tomorrow will be like today, like yesterday – if we do not do it for ourselves. Let us not rely on people who only care about their own benefits. We are the ones who die on the roads, in our homes, at our places of employment. If we do not change our habits, have respect for ourselves and each other, then another 30,000 people will die, every year.
* Alexx lives in and works from Centurion. He has degrees in economics, politics and strategic studies. In the recent past he has been managing director of a mutual fund company, a pseudo banker managing wealth and transactional products and currently runs a specialist research and consulting entity. Before that he did a stint at National Treasury and at a Constitutional entity, managing its research division. He has travelled extensively, studied offshore and done a stint of work for the IMF. More than most things he loves to mountain bike, let his dogs walk him and write – just write.
