Catch the speedsters: Anglo American donates speed cameras and breathalysers in a campaign to curb road crashes
|Published
The Mpumalanga department of community safety, security and liaison has received “an early Christmas” as it received a donation of six calibrated speed cameras and 15 breathalysers with 750 blow pipes from the Anglo American Mine.
The handover of the equipment took place on Tuesday at Mashishing.
Hennie Wood, a safety, health, environment and quality manager at the Booysendal Platinum Mine, said that they have decided to join hands with the provincial department to help improve road safety in Mpumalanga.
“Our trucks use the road to and from our mines on a regular basis. Some of the trucks are involved in the crashes that are recorded. We therefore cannot sit and watch without doing anything,” said Wood.
“We hope that the equipment we are donating today will help improve road safety and increase traffic officers' visibility on the roads.”
According to Wood, since the beginning of the year, there has been at least 16 crashes involving their trucks within the Mashishing and their mining precinct.
“We know that it is sometimes our employees who transgress the law, and we will continue on our side to take disciplinary action against them. It is therefore important for us to collaborate to educate drivers and instil good driver behaviour in them,” said Wood.
“We believe that these cameras we are donating will be for a good cause to curb speeding. We don't like fines as well, but it be if good cause if the fines are increased so that the lawbreakers can start feeling it and practice good behaviour.”
Meanwhile, the Mpumalanga department of community safety, security and liaison’s transport regulation general manager, Sibandiso Nkuna said the department appreciates the donation, adding that it will go a long way to save lives on South Africa’s perilous roads.
“Private partnerships are important to government to improve service delivery. We need more commitment from private sectors to assist the department in fighting the scourge of road crashes,” said Nkuna.
“Most crashes are head-on collision, side-swipe, and loss of control. This is an indication that most of these crashes that we record on the roads are a result of drunk driving and speed. These equipments donated today will go a long way to curb this bad behaviour from drivers.”
Nkuna added that the mine will form a forum where information will be shared on how to improve road safety in the province.
The international mining company has also committed to train 10 traffic officers to operate the speed cameras.
Last week, IOL reported that chief executive of the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC), advocate Makhosini Msibi, led a raid at the Meyerton licensing centre in Gauteng, were several officials were arrested after being found with loads of cash in their pockets and bags.
Annually, Msibi said South Africa spends R146 billion in relation to road accidents - including for medical care for people involved in rampant road crashes.
“What causes this? The people that we have on the road cannot drive. You can see lists here of people who are not here but they are going to get issued their driver’s licence while they are not here. Those people cannot even drive, but the next moment, they are going to be on the road and they are going to cause a lot of accidents,” he said.
“The second matter on this is greed. Our officials have permanent job employment but as you can see, normally at this station by 11 or by 10 o’clock in the morning, the officials or most of them have about R6,000 in the pocket, so you can imagine how much they have at the end of the day. This is tax-free, that money they are having on a daily basis.”
IOL