With the Claremont community still reeling in shock after the hit and run which claimed the life of Olivia Sieff (18), the Road Safety Action Campaign (RSAC) warns there will be more of these tragic road deaths if proper traffic control and traffic safety measures are not put into place.
Sieff, a former Herschel Girls School learner who matriculated recently, died after being hit by a vehicle in the early hours of Sunday 30 January in Main Road, Claremont.
On Friday 4 February, a woman (31) from Wynberg appeared in court on charges of culpable homicide and leaving the scene of an accident without ascertaining injuries or damage and released on R3 000 bail.
Richard Benson, founder of RSAC, has been trying to make provincial and national governments act against the constant deaths on South African roads since 2005.
The Claremont resident says he began the campaign after having lost friends on the road due to fatal crashes.
“And I say crashes, not accidents. Speeding and drunk driving are not accidental. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has asked for people not to use the word accident in these cases because it creates the idea that this is somehow unavoidable. And it is not,” he says.
Reacting to Sieff’s death, Benson asks whether there were an appropriate number of traffic police officers on duty on the evening preceding her death.
“Not only that evening but every evening in Cape Town because I believe there’s a traffic police shortage,” he says.
Benson claims, because there are too few traffic officers to go around, most are off duty in the afternoons and in the evenings.
“You need about three shifts a day to cover a 24-hour cycle. In the night time, instead of preventing drunk driving, they are at home in bed. The only way to cope with the carnage on our roads is to have enough traffic officers to prevent drunk driving,” he says.
Richard Coleman, spokesperson for City Traffic Service, says there are 360 operational officers within the City of Cape Town’s Traffic Service. Of these, Coleman says – depending on the operational requirements of the day – up to 54 officers are allocated for the entire area from Simon’s Town to Cape Town CBD over an 18-hour time frame.
“Specialised teams are also deployed to the area on a daily basis,” says Coleman.
He explains that the Traffic Service deploys staff from 06:00 to 24:00.
“This covers the time frames of peak hour traffic and when most incidents occur. Thereafter any identified service complaint outside of this time is planned for separately. Incidents of an individual nature, such as a pedestrian crash, are not possible to plan for.”
Coleman adds that, “due to the magnitude of the area and various other complaints of the same nature”, traffic officers cannot be deployed to specific locations on a daily basis.
“The deployments are split over the day to provide services during peak hour traffic,” he reiterates, adding that the City has three enforcement agencies – metro police, law enforcement services and the South African Police Service – which are also available.
“And all three contribute to all safety issues,” he says.
Another traffic control measure that needs urgent attention, according to Benson, is the lowering of the speed limit in urban areas from 60 km/h to 30 km/h.
According to a WHO report on speed, pedestrians have a 90% chance of survival when struck by a car travelling at 30 km/h or below, but less than 50% chance of surviving an impact at 45 km/h. Pedestrians have almost no chance of surviving an impact at 80 km/h.
During the 6th United Nations Global Road Safety Week held in May last year, policy-makers worldwide were asked to limit speeds to 30 km/h in areas “where people live, work and play”.
Benson asks why the national Department of Transport has not yet taken steps to implement this speed limit which can save lives.
People’s Post posed this question to the department, but at the time of going to print, no comment had been received.
The suspect in the Olivia Sieff case will again appear in court on Wednesday 25 May.
