South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) CEO Reginald Demana said the organisation learnt “valuable lessons about road safety and reducing road deaths” from countries such as Canada, Ireland, and Spain at the recent World Road Congress in Prague, Czech Republic.
The Congress saw the gathering of 4,300 engineers, policymakers, law enforcement agents, and other professionals from 114 countries who shared knowledge and experiences regarding best practices on their roads.
Sanral has taken the advice to heart and has pinned down the areas that require more focus from policy-makers and law enforcement agencies to improve road safety in South Africa, which it said includes young drivers.
“It is clear that Sanral, which is responsible for maintaining and expanding the national road network and some provincial roads, will need to work with other state agencies to look at programmes to improve roads safety among the youth, particularly with regard to road safety, drinking and driving, pedestrian behaviour, and many other aspects,” said Demana.
Referencing practices employed by other countries, the CEO said education at primary and high schools, increased policing, and the use of technology were key to reducing crashes and deaths on the road.
“Some of the lessons we have learned from the Canadians, the Irish, and the Spanish, is that they have a focus on youth and that they have special programmes focussing on young drivers,” said Demana.
“In some countries, they don’t allow young drivers who don’t have a certain minimum number of years of experience to drive alone. In other countries, they have a limit on the hours during which youth drivers can be on the road by themselves. Others have a higher limitation on the age when youth can drive.”
South Africa must therefore relook its dispensation around young drivers and what the authorities can do to enforce regulations and improve compliance, said the Sanral CEO.
The impact of climate change on South Africa’s roads
In addition to the increased focus on young drivers, Sanral said it took away major lessons from the Congress about the impact of climate change on road infrastructure.
“As South Africa, we need to start incorporating the damage of infrastructure such as roads into disaster management, we need to align ourselves with disaster management centres with our responses and coordinate better so that we are involved with disaster management,” said Demana.
With this in mind, Sanral will work on establishing an “integrated approach across different agencies together with disaster management centres” that will improve its response to natural disasters like what we saw in Western Cape just two weeks ago, and further up the coast in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal in recent years.
Keyword: South Africa learns “valuable lessons” on road safety from Canada, Ireland, and Spain – Big changes ahead