Cost of fitting retroreflective material ranges from R760 to R1800
THE ROAD Freight Association (RFA) has expressed grave concern about the new ruling by the Department of Transport that all freight vehicles with
a gross vehicle mass exceeding 10 000kg must, after December 31, 2000 be fitted with yellow side and rear retroreflective material that complies with the SABS specification (SABS ECE R104) that came into effect on July 1.
RFA manager of technical affairs, Costa Pierides, said this involved some 300 000 heavy vehicles on the roads and an estimated cost of around R500 million.
The average cost of fitting trucks with the material, depending on the size of truck, is between R760 and R1 800.
Time frame
'unrealistic'
"We are very concerned that to fit this huge amount of vehicles in about 14 months is not realistic or practical. Thousands and thousands of metres will be required. We, as an industry, do not believe that compliance in the time horizon specified is achievable. We are also not totally convinced that side impacts are a major problem and that this is an absolutely cost-effective option or that it has been adequately researched," he said.
Collisions involving heavy trucks only constituted 5% of the total number of collisions, so why the department was targeting trucks, was a bit of a mystery, he said.
Recently the industry had to incur the cost of converting back chevrons from red to yellow and red reflective material this year, he said.
Other options
"While we hear the problems and understand them, we believe there are other options such as reflectors, lights, and other more active safety features which may have already been fitted and which have not been accommodated. We are not convinced we should be spending this amount of money without seeing hard facts," he said.
A study conducted in the US showed a reduction of 16% of day time collisions and 21% in night time collisions using a test involving 4 000 long vehicles over a two-year period - 2 000 with contour markings.
Following this, markings became law in the US in 1993. "However, the same vehicles do not carry the type of chevrons we have accepted in South Africa and American vehicles are also longer in combination, that is 25m
vs 22m in SA. We don't believe that this comparison is necessarily relevant," said Pierides.
By anna Cox
Copyright Now Media (Pty) Ltd
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