Deputy transport minister’s Mandela Day wish

Deputy Minister of Transport, Sindisiwe Chikunga, has called on South Africans to use the call to action in honour of former President Nelson Mandela’s birthday to make roads in the country safer. Speaking at Mandela Day celebrations in Mandela’s hometown of Qunu in the Eastern Cape last week, Chikunga said the request to dedicate at least 67 minutes of one’s time to a good and worthy cause can make a remarkable difference. Conveying condolences to the families of the 25 people who died recently during a crash between a goods train and a truck in Mpumalanga province, she said every South African had been directly or indirectly affected by a road-related incident. “In a 2003 United Nations Report, Africa’s roads were reported to be the worst in the world in terms of road user behaviour and crashes/fatalities. Road fatalities are still one of the top causes of death and disability for children and young people – and the problem was said to be more acute in sub-Saharan Africa,” said Chikunga. “Road crashes claim the lives of at least 1.3 million people each year while about 50 million people suffer injuries worldwide. More people die on the roads than from malaria.” In South Africa, the 2005 Road Traffic Management Report indicated that 90% of crashes were a result of lawlessness. In July 2009 Transport Ministers from the African continent attended the international Africa Make Roads Safe Conference held in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania where they recommitted themselves to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of improving road safety and halving the number of road fatalities by the year 2015.