Dear Minister Creecy,

With reference to your statement last week that you intend to introduce additional regulations for learner transport, following the horror recently in Vanderbijlpark, I would raise the following:
The people of South Africa note your concern and appreciate the effort you intend to make to improve the traffic safety of our learners. However, in my humble opinion the root cause of the problem is not necessarily the inadequacy of the regulations, but the ENFORCEMENT thereof. One can promulgate all the regulations in the world, but if there is no enforcement, they are not worth the paper they are written on.

My view is that the road traffic sector as a whole requires cleanout from the ground up. Operators in the transport industry, especially taxi operators, have free reign to do as they please. They are a law unto themselves, and many others follow their lead, for example, the sixty operators that were transporting learners in the Lenasia area, and whose vehicles were impounded due to various transgressions. Why does it take a tragedy of the magnitude experienced in Vanderbijlpark to trigger a once-off exercise to suddenly check on roadworthiness and regulatory compliance of operators?
It is time for traffic authorities to enforce a continuous programme of active policing and regular compliance checks on public transport operators. A one-day exercise of spot-checks as a knee-jerk reaction to an avoidable, horrific disaster just does not cut it.

If I recall, you also recently bemoaned the exorbitant cost to our economy due to the result of road accidents: the number of deaths, the monetary cost, as well as the strain on our health services deserve mention. Consider how much it will cost to enhance traffic policing and regulatory compliance, versus the improvement it would bring about by reducing deaths, insurance claims, maimings and the strain on health care facilities.

In summary, address the root cause of the dilapidated state of our traffic control system by:
1. Procuring sufficient resources - human and equipment - to enforce current legislation on a continuous basis.
2. Developing appropriate performance criteria for traffic police, and applying them at all levels. Get rid of under-performers. There are many millions of unemployed people in our country. I am convinced we have the talent available to do the job excellently.
3. Rigorously enforcing accountability at all levels of the command structure. Get rid of corrupt elements, and prosecute them to the full extent of the law.
4. Closely monitoring key performance indicators and critical success factors, and improving identified deficiencies.

Yours sincerely
Ben Pentz