Road safety and carnage

by Letters Editor · January 13, 2011

From Chris Shelmerdine, Cape Town

Your correspondent, Manny de Freitas (December 15), especially since he writes as the shadow deputy minister for transport, prompts me once again to complain at the visible lack of serious concern on the part of government to take decisive and effective steps not only to reduce the accident rate on our roads, but to totally eliminate it. Why is it apparently so difficult?

If my 3-year old child cannot be trusted with an AK47�and he cannot�do I therefore tell him to be very careful with it? And punish him every time he shoots or tries to shoot one of my friends?

Surely, I explain to him that he just can�t have one. And, no, he cannot have an Uzzi sub-machine gun either. But, yes, he may certainly have (in my judgment, anyhow) a look-alike plastic toy gun, or a water pistol. He may even point it at selected (by me!) people and �fire� it at them. But a real gun, absolutely and unconditionally, no!

Likewise I would say the same to an adult, over whom I have authority, who cannot demonstrate that he has an indisputable need for such a horrendous weapon.

I have yet to find anyone who can explain to me why such a prohibition is not extended to the equally horrendous and lethal motor vehicle that is to be found by the millions on our public highways and city streets. Nobody that I know of has any need for a vehicle that is capable of exceeding the national speed limit of 120km/h, except for racing drivers, who are restricted to driving them on race tracks.

And, equally incomprehensible to me, is the unnecessarily high legal speed limit of 60km/h that applies not only to urban arterial roads, but also even to narrow lanes and crowded high streets.

Why is there no explicit differentiation? The musician Jub Jub was possibly within this legal speed limit when he is alleged to have mowed down those schoolchildren. So he may, one could suppose, yet try to claim it in mitigation, which most definitely should not be allowed.

The only way that the carnage on our roads can be absolutely eliminated, and very simply and cheaply at that, is to prohibit the manufacture, import and licensing of motor vehicles that are capable of speeds in excess of 120km/h. And vehicles that cannot exceed 60km/h should carry a substantial tax benefit and/or minimal annual licence fee.

A fast car, that is to say, one that can exceed the national speed limit, is exactly like an AK47.