Solving road (and pedestrian) safety problems through sustainable job creation in our communities

Abstract

Paper presented at the 31st Annual Southern African Transport Conference 9-12 July 2012 "Getting Southern Africa to Work", CSIR International Convention Centre, Pretoria, South Africa.

Southern Africa faces many challenges, amongst others unemployment and road deaths, almost half of the road fatalities being pedestrians. Innovative solutions for solving road safety (and especially pedestrian safety) challenges in our rural communities can be achieved by involving the local community in the solution. This should be done in such a way that the local community members actively participate in road safety and particularly pedestrian safety education. Training is one way of achieving this goal. The experience in labour intensive construction infrastructure provision in rural and urban communities can be applied in community pedestrian safety projects. This paper will indicate how facilitating the forming of a steering committee (representing the local community, local school, SAPS, Traffic), implementing authorities (municipal, provincial, toll concessionaire), implementing agent (consultants, project managers) and training in this case a community safety/pedestrian officer, (instead of the usual community liaison officer) who can implement the community pedestrian project can be used to enhance existing road safety education in schools. The added advantages of such projects includes the creation of creating sustainable jobs, meaningful employment and sustained road safety awareness in communities, empowerment of local communities, involvement and buy-in of communities at large. Private enterprises involved in these road safety initiatives have the added advantage of funding such projects with Corporate Social Investment funding, with significant benefits for such companies. Other examples of innovative road safety projects that create employment will also be discussed. Specifically the for example the pointsmen that an insurance company has placed at intersections during peak traffic to assist with traffic flow and improved road safety.