A Road Safety Workshop was organised by the South African Road Federation (SARF) in co-operation with the International Road Federation (IRF) and the Global Transport Knowledge Partnership (gTKP). The workshop was held on 14 October at the University of Stellenbosch and followed on the successful hosting of the 4th SARF-IRF Regional Conference for Africa in Somerset West from 11-13 October 2010.
The key conclusions and associated resolutions from the workshop are as follows:
- The unavailability and unreliability of traffic safety-related data, especially road accident statistics, is a serious problem complicates management decisions: The SARF intends to interact with relevant authorities, including the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) and the Department of Transport (DoT), to initiate implementation of appropriate data management systems.
- Lack of adequate law enforcement perpetuates implementation of traffic calming measures, which treats the symptom and not the cause: The SARF will liaise with the RTMC to bring the seriousness of the matter to their attention and to propose interventions to improve the situation.
- Lack of awareness and promotion of road safety: The SARF to interact with the DoT, RTMC and other authorities to develop programmes to seriously improve the road safety culture in South Africa.
- Road safety education should be integrated through existing time slots in education programmes: The SARF should approach the Department of Education to determine when lessons should be presented and liaise with road safety officials to implement.
- Road Safety Engineering course/guidelines manual: The SARF to develop/facilitate a Road Safety Engineering course in line with the review of the South African Road Safety (SARS) Manual. The SARF will further involve law enforcers in the development of the course and the review of the SARS Manual.
- The United Nations ‘Decade for Action’ for Road Safety: All programmes must be compliant and aligned with the principles of the ‘Decade of Action’.
- Accommodation of traffic on rehabilitation contracts: The SARF intends to arrange a work zone week to make public aware of construction work zone safety; approach the DoT regarding revision of Chapter 13 of the South African Road Traffic Signs Manual (SARTSM), and facilitate the inclusion of traffic management modules to be included in RTMC training courses
- Road Safety NGO’s: SARF to explore cooperation with NGO’s such as AMEND and GRSP.