Publications
Partners
Gary Scott, CEO of Kia South Africa, recently spent a couple of weeks abroad and couldn't help comparing the road safety and driver behaviour to ours once he returned home. He also realises a simple solution could change things for the better.
According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), South Africa has one of the world's worst road safety records and remains one of the worst countries to drive in. We accept this as an immutable fact, just as permanent a feature of Msanzi's landscape as that beautiful table-shaped hill in Cape Town.
But it's not our fault, right? It's the overloaded taxis, the potholes, a misplaced focus on speed infringements by law enforcement, and drunk pedestrians. Pick one, or pick them all.
WATCH | 'It could have been a scary nightmare' — Reckless Amajuba Pass truck driver arrested
I've just spent two weeks in another country with my family. And I was the designated driver for the entire two weeks, racking up easily two thousand kilometres in an unfamiliar environment; not one close shave, not one road rage incident.
On the drive back home to Midrand from OR Tambo when we returned, the family almost got wiped out not once but three times.
So what is the difference?
Road safety pariah
Indeed, cars in the UK meet a basic roadworthy standard. No smoking wrecks crabbing up the main highways at 40km/h in the middle lane or shopping mall parking lots littered with illegal foreign-plated mis-specced cars. But it pretty much ends there: I saw plenty of drunk pedestrians staggering around the village lanes, dodged potholes on the main road into Manchester and elsewhere, and I saw lots of speed cameras just like we have here. No significant difference there.
We could attend to all the issues listed, but we would still be a road safety pariah.
Cars have never been safer, on average. Anti-lock braking systems (ABS), airbags, crumple zones, and collision avoidance systems have all been added to new vehicles to create an aura of invincibility for drivers in particular.
The diagnosis is hard to swallow because we dislike criticising ourselves. It's much better to blame external factors, things beyond our control, secure in the knowledge that we are not responsible.
READ | Deaths and injuries in road crashes are a 'silent epidemic on wheels'
What are we missing?
The problem is attitude—definitely yours, and most certainly mine. We have two things in spades: Ill-discipline and inattentiveness.
Our ill-discipline plays out in how we treat the rules of the road; stop signs are ignored, solid white lines mean nothing, and the emergency lane is just an express lane to get home earlier. When we can't predict how other road users will react, the number of scenarios that can play out in an on-road interaction ramps up significantly. And we are not gifted Formula One drivers, as much as we may rate ourselves as such. We need time and space to predict and act to avoid collisions.
You get what you've got when you take this chaotic situation as a baseline and add a world-class level of distraction and inattentiveness.
I play a little game on the narrow road
I play a little game on the narrow road leading to my highway onramp every morning. I look directly at the oncoming driver. A road made more treacherous by dusty earthmoving as it undergoes a long overdue upgrade. I count how many drivers I can see in a row with both hands on the steering wheel and eyes on the road. I rarely get past three. We are typing messages on our cellphones, hunting for something in the cabin or applying makeup. It's endemic. And don't get me started on seatbelts and child seats.
READ | We all have to walk across roads — why aren’t pedestrians a focus of road safety?
So what did I find in that once-green pleasant land up North? Strangely, a heat wave, fields scorched brown under a blazing sun, hosepipe restrictions and yes, potholes. Oddly familiar. But also fast, assertive driving, with absolute focus on the task at hand and within the parameters of the law. Courtesy towards others but no patience for dawdling or distracted behaviour from fellow road users.
I consider myself a good driver in South Africa but definitely one of the worst on the road in the UK. I got hooted at once; I was slow to interpret the right of way at one of their massive traffic circles (known as roundabouts), held to a standard by the roadgoing community. I was thankful for the instant feedback: I chastened and improved!
This is not about money or means. Attitude costs nothing, and in person, we are a famously warm, hospitable, compassionate nation. Everywhere except on the road. Next time you get in your car, think of your passengers.
Our children will approach their own driving based on observed behaviour – our driving. Are we good teachers or the very worst? We can fix this. Jim Morrison said it in 1970: "Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel." Let's start.
