The rules of the road

Drivers in South Africa have a deserved reputation of being among the worst in the world, and road fatality statistics bear this out. The numbers likewise suggest that South African pedestrians tend to be a danger to themselves and others.

If there is one shortcoming in the Ten Commandments for drivers listed in the Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road issued by the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travellers, then it must be the absence of an exhortation to pedestrians to reciprocate the drivers requirement to exercise responsibility on our roads.

The trafficular Ten Commandments have received widespread publicity even in the secular media. One hopes that the good advice contained in the commandments will have the effect of changing the driving habits of motorists, Catholic or not.

The commandments are based on the self-evident injunction, You shall not kill. Motor vehicles are potentially lethal instruments, and all we do while in control of them should be based on this simple mandate.

The commandments rightly stress that the road is a means of communion between people, which requires courtesy, uprightness and prudence in our relations with fellow motorists, cyclists and pedestrians. This is not empty rhetoric: when we angrily hoot at another driver we should ask ourselves whether we would also shout loudly at a passerby on the pavement or a fellow shopper in the supermarket whose motions displease us.

Commandment six is crucial: to convince others not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so. Driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs in particular is an act of gross negligence which is, thankfully, becoming a social taboo.

The eighth commandment’s advice to bring guilty motorists and their victims together so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness makes eminent sense. Models of restorative justice could be applied with relative ease in instances of motor accidents, particularly as traffic tragedies tend not to be premeditated or indeed desired by the offending party.

It may well be that the prospect of having to look into the eyes of a grieving widow or orphan while asking for forgiveness and offering reparation serves as a greater deterrent to irresponsible driving than the possibility of facing a judge in court.

It would be naive to think, however, that good intentions alone are going to cure South Africa of its social problem of bad driving habits. The rules of the road must be enforced in a way that would place an emphasis on rooting out dangerous driving.

South African motorists frequently complain that the traffic authorities show greater enthusiasm for accumulating fines for relatively minor offences than for enforcing traffic rules by pulling over dangerous drivers. Such complaints are usually accompanied by a notion that traffic officers lack visibility on the road, and that drivers of mini bus taxis tend to get away with dangerous driving.

Whether or not such observations correspond with reality is not for us to say. It is true, however, that these perceptions do exist. And such perceptions can lead to a breakdown in discipline on our roads as motorists claim for themselves the same levels of impunity they see in the behaviour of taxi drivers.

This culture of impunity must be resolutely challenged, by re-assigning traffic officers manning speed traps on lonely rural byways to roads that urgently require active law enforcement, and through education. The Vatican’s Ten Commandments for drivers would form a good basis for the latter.