Can communication really make a difference to road safety?

Here's an example. For as long as anyone can remember, control of South Africa's motorists has been all stick and very little carrot.

And the reason this country leads just about the whole world when it comes to wiping out fellow citizens on the road at a frightening rate is because even the stick seems to be wielded with such a limp wrist that nowadays that not many drivers wake up in the middle of the night wide-eyed and with thumping hearts at the thought of what might have befallen had they been caught overtaking on a solid white line, shooting a red traffic light and so on.

Frankly, not too many drivers see this as breaking the law anymore or even being mildly delinquent, let alone a criminal offence.

South Africa's road hygiene has deteriorated to the point where a cancer has set in.

Only partially successful

The much vaunted Arrive Alive campaign has only been partially successful when it has been accompanied by threats of dire consequences for speeding and drunken driving. But, even when it has worked, all it has succeeded in doing is reducing road deaths from the absolutely horrific to just plain horrendous. It hardly really dented the problem, though.

Maybe to really reduce the number of accidents on our roads, SA has first to decide if indeed it wants to aspire to the road safety records of Australia, the US, UK and northern Europe.

And if our road traffic authorities and Government are still prepared to have a go at achieving first world targets, then the only way they are going to achieve this is to shift some outdated road safety paradigms.

They are also going to have to attack the cancer with surgery and not Elastoplast.

Most prominent among the causes of our bad road hygiene is the taxi industry. Not from the point of view of causing accidents but because of what it communicates. Strangely enough if one looks at millions of kilometres travelled, combi taxis actually have fewer accidents than the ordinary private motorist. That is the reality. The perception, which is always more powerful than any reality, is that combi taxis are wiping out people faster than any war has ever managed to do.

While taxi drivers the world over exhibit their own peculiar form of arrogance, this is exacerbated in SA simply because it was only recently that the industry was legalised - all we had before that were stone mad bus drivers who now seem to be contesting the title all over again.

Of course, the taxi drivers are not really to blame. They are hounded by their bosses to achieve an almost impossible number of daily journeys in order to make a profit. Anyone under that kind of work pressure would drive like a demon.

Massive competition

Massive competition and out-of-reach profit also means they have to drive badly maintained vehicles.

Now, if that's not bad enough, Government has seen fit to allow the common combi taxi to legally carry far more passenger than the number for which the vehicle was originally designed. Ask any manufacturer and you will be told that combi taxis cannot be strengthened to the point where the passenger load can be anything like doubled.

Logically, therefore, one cannot help but come to the conclusion that Government has been forced to allow taxis to carry a potentially lethal number of passengers in order to be economically viable with the result that a certain number of deaths must be accepted in order to allow the industry to prosper.

Which is frightening. Rather like military chiefs during warfare weighing up the number of casualties relative to attaining a military objective.

The big problem, however, is that the more the average motorist sees a taxi driver breaking the rules of the road left, right and centre and getting away with it, and never really being seen to be hauled off the road by a traffic officer, the more the notion of "Well if they can get away with it, then so can I," will take root.

One only has to keep one's eyes open in the traffic to see, not just how many little laws are being broken but how much serious legislation is being ignored.

SA's record of road safety will not start showing significant improvement until Government and the authorities stop applying the law selectively and start applying it to everyone.

Shift paradigms

But, applying the law is only part of the solution. Paradigms need to be severely shifted.

And the first to go must be the almost single-minded fixation the traffic authorities, the transport minister and myriad Mother Grundies have with speed.

Speed does not kill. Or, if one wishes to cling to that argument, then the speed limits should be reduced to a maximum of 15kph because it has been scientifically proved that two cars colliding at 16kph or a pedestrian being hit by a car travelling at 16kph could more than likely end up dead. Yes, of course arguments about the higher the speed the greater the stopping distance and the like are valid arguments. But one gets the impression that speed is the only culprit.

And the real trouble with making speed the major road safety hobby horse is that it is 100% punitive and 0% motivational. Every motorist in South Africa has exceeded a speed limit in the past month. It is almost impossible not to.
That makes everyone a criminal. And if one studies the effects of certain types of communication on human nature, one quickly realises that by singlemindedly concentrating on the issue of speed, there is absolutely no inclination by anyone to try and become a better, safer, more considerate and tolerant driver.

It simply engenders a feeling of oppression, a hatred for traffic authorities and, in far too many drivers, a certain bravado to taste the forbidden fruit without getting caught.

Old argument

The old argument, of course, is that catching people for speeding is not only the most financially lucrative law enforcement pursuit but also the easiest. That it is better than trying to convict someone of reckless driving or overtaking on solid white lines and so forth.

But there is an alternative that would be supported by anyone who has ever driven a car, bus or truck. Following distance, which unlike the issue of speed, does not create arguments for and against.

In Germany there is a device which is as simple as speed trapping equipment that very simply measures following distance. This is usually by camera on a bridge and like speed trapping devices it measures speed but also the distance between two cars. They also take photos of offenders.

Now look at the benefits of communicating following distance as a criminal offence.

No driver likes to experience someone behind indulging in tailgating. So very few drivers will have any problem with the authorities making following distance the number one road traffic offence. For the first time traffic police will find wholehearted support from the public.

When you think of it - following distance, or rather, not keeping a safe following distance, is far more of a common denominator in accidents than speed. Cars can travel at twice the speed limit and as long as the correct following distance is being kept, speed as such virtually becomes a non factor in terms of its potential to cause an accident.

Road safety communication

Another paradigm shift that needs to take place is road safety communication, particularly advertising.

There have been all sort of road safety ads in the newspapers and on television these past few years. None have been worth a row of beans. Simply because it is inherent in human nature to believe that accidents happen to other people. That other people kill other people in cars.

Yes, there has been argument that in Australia "shock" ads have had considerable effect. It is far more likely that the rigidly enforced rules that accompanied the ads were the real cause for the drop in road accidents.

But, as most road safety ads are run free as a community service by newspapers, magazines, radio and television, they are better than nothing. What effect they have is merely scratching the surface of the problem. Breaking the rules of the road needs to become socially unacceptable.

What is needed is not more laws but a fresh look at how existing laws can be better applied through communicating modern motivating factors that will bring the majority of motorists into his camp and not alienate them. Things like concentrating on following distance.

And contriving creative ways of motivating people to perform. Dangling a carrot and not just wielding the stick.

Business is doing it. Politicians are doing it. Labour unions are doing it. Everybody is doing it - so why not the traffic authorities?