Proposed road safety measures will push up transport costs

Truck bans, reduced driving
speeds and licence re-testing
are all treating the symptoms
of road safety and not the
cause, according to Abdool
Kader Tayob, CEO of Bakers
SA.
“At face value the impact of
speed reduction will be more
congestion and increased
costs,” he said.
Kevin Kamoran, national
transport manager at Nestle,
said manufacturers would
have to re-assess transport
operations and this could
possibly result in increased
operations at night.
“Many companies, however,
have night driving bans. If a
company sticks to that it would
mean though that they would
need extra shifts during the day
to handle the current volumes,”
he said. “That in itself would
mean increased costs.”
Calls for drivers to re-do
their driver licences will have
a significant impact on cost
while increased collusion and
corruption opportunities could
not be ruled out, said Gavin
Kelly, spokesman of the RFA.
Gertzen Schlemmer, head
of HCM Consulting business
Gijima, said while much of the
proposed legislation had good
intentions, from a practical
point of view it was extremely
challenging.
“In principle there is
some logic to the decisions
they are taking but there
are challenges around
the practicality of it all
– including the ability of
regulatory institutions
to accurately regulate
the regulations,” he said.
“Licensing departments
are already under strain to
process the current driver
licence applications and so it
is questionable how they will
be able to deal with increased
pressure.”
He said all of the current
symptomatic issues with
the system would not just
disappear and there was no
sign at present that these
would be corrected any time
soon.
“You would have to go to
the core of the regulatory
system itself if you were going
to change legislation to this
extent,” he said.