The Vatican's guidelines on moral motoring would not go amiss in our country, writes Rich Mkhondo.
Johannesubrg - Everyone has a story to tell about the carnage on our roads. Like those who were the first to arrive at the scene of Minister Collins Chabane’s fatal crash, everyone is haunted for years if not the rest of their lives by having observed or come across a horrific accident.
There are several etched into my mind. Here are two of them: four people killed in two accidents at the same spot on a highway in my beloved East Rand. One involved a minibus taxi.
If this fails to shake you, consider how these tragedies took place. Medical personnel and traffic officers were attending to victims of an accident, two of whom were already dead. There were scores of onlookers, some of them lending a helping hand to the injured and shocked. In came a speeding truck, knocking down and killing three medics and two traffic officers and injuring scores more.
This disaster on one of the motorways I use every day is just one example of how more than 18 000 people die every year on our roads.
The horrible accidents of the past few days, including the one involving Minister Chabane have focused national attention on road carnage. But, it has been a typically tragic March. It will be followed by the Easter holidays – April is one of the most deadly months on the roads in our country.
SCENE FROM A WAR ZONE
The other day, I was cruising in the middle lane on one of the national highways between Pretoria and Joburg. Cars were overtaking me like daredevils.
Then a speeding SUV started tailgating me. The well-dressed driver, who was talking on his cellphone, started beaming his headlights repeatedly. I moved over to the left lane while this road hog sped off, doing 160km/h in an 80km/h stretch, still on the phone.
During my journey, three ambulances overtook me. Then I came up to one of the worst traffic jams along the highway.
Police vehicles with sirens blaring and five more ambulances slowly weaved through the jam – a sign that something bad had happened along the highway.
Another hour of crawling for 3km and then I saw the carnage. It looked like a scene from a war zone. An SUV was lying on its side on the opposite side of the highway heading south, with another badly damaged car behind it. Parts were all over the road, guardrails were mangled and clothing and shoes were strewn all over. Bodies covered in black plastic bags were lined up by the roadside. I refused to look.
It was not the black SUV that had overtaken me earlier, but I could not help wonder if most cars on our roads are time bombs, waiting to be involved in accidents.
I wonder, for example, just what punishment road rogues like the one who was driving the overturned SUV received, if that driver survived.
What kind of sentence do such murderers generally get?
For me, if justice is being done, it should be equivalent to that given to an adult, of sane mind, who plays with a loaded gun and accidentally shoots someone to death.
“DRIVING HAS BECOME A NIGHTMARE”
Driving in the major cities, towns, townships, suburbs and on our national freeways is a nightmare. Speeding, queue-jumping, illegal turns, beating traffic lights and ignoring traffic signs have become a motoring culture.
Try driving a legal 80km/h on certain stretches of our roads. You will either pick up tailgating, irate, horn-honking drivers or drivers will zigzag in and out of traffic to get around you.
Is death by traffic crash acceptable? Any more acceptable than any other type of unnatural death? People are dying on our highways at an incredible rate. If related to some other cause, the deaths would cause public outcry if not plain panic.
Long after Chabane and others are buried, we will continue to pontificate and wait for the next accident to talk about.
How many families will lose loved ones like the Chabanes? How many children will lose a parent like those of Minister Chabane’s protectors, Sergeant Lesiba Sekele and Sergeant Lawrence Lentsoane? How many more lives need to be lost before we, as road users, come to our senses?
We have come to think of traffic deaths as acceptable. No public outcry, no demands that something be done, no change in driver behaviour. Nothing.
So why have our roads become killing fields? Worse still is the fact that many of those deaths are caused by drunk drivers, who shouldn’t be behind the wheel in the first place. But where do these intoxicated killers get the courage to drive?
10 COMMANDMENTS FOR THE ROAD
Here is an interesting suggestion from The Vatican, the smallest country in the world. While I was touring Italy and popped in at the Vatican in 2010, I came across a list of 10 commandments issued by the Vatican for motorists.
“Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road”, drawn up by Cardinal Renato Martino, chief of the Vatican’s Office for Migrants and Itinerant People says:
- You shall not kill.
- The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.
- Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.
- Be charitable and help your neighbour in need, especially victims of accidents.
- Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination and an occasion of sin.
- Charitably convince the young and not-so-young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so.
- Support the families of accident victims.
- Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness.
- On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.
- Feel responsible towards others.
BE PART OF THE SOLUTION
We need such guidelines amid reports of the carnage that takes place on the nation’s highways.
If you have taken the time to read this, you are fully capable of being part of the solution to the carnage on our roads.
Examine your driving habits, and strive to obey all laws. One of the simplest ways is to just slow down.
That means either not worrying about being a minute or two late or leaving a minute or two earlier. Be strong enough to drive the speed limit, regardless of how fast everyone around you is going.
The carnage on the roads continues every day, every month and every year.
We are killing ourselves at a much higher rate than anyone is killing us.
We, as a society, have to accept that if every driver followed the traffic laws, there would be very few crashes if any. -The Star
Rich Mkhondo runs The Media and Writers Firm, a content development and reputation management hub.