Crackdown on killer drivers

ABOUT 20000 South Africans have been arrested in the past year for drunk driving - the cause of nearly 60% of deaths on the country's roads each year.

And now, as part of a plan to crack down on the problem, the National Prosecuting Authority is charging drunken and reckless drivers who have been involved in fatal accidents with murder, because it carries a heavier penalty should the accused be found guilty.

NPA spokesman Advocate Mthunzi Mhaga said two reckless drivers had already been convicted of murder: a taxi driver who was sentenced to eight years' jail, and a man who killed three children while fleeing police in a stolen car. The thief was given an 18-year sentence.

Law-enforcement agencies can already deal harshly with offenders, but are planning to apply existing rules more rigorously. These measures include:

• Mandatory suspension of offenders' licences;
• Suspects having their blood alcohol levels tested on the scene by nursing staff; and
• Traffic police stationed outside nightclubs in the early hours on weekends.

Since May, traffic authorities have tested around 10000 drivers nationally a month - or an average of 1100 in each province.

But Howard Dembovsky, the national chairman of the Justice Project South Africa, an NGO which also focuses on drunken driving, was critical of the authorities' efforts.

"People's chances of being arrested at a roadblock are very good. But getting them convicted in a competent court in another story," he said.

There was a drastic lack of enforcement, no evaluation of existing tactics, and a lack of education, Dembovsky said. "We do not have accurate record keeping. There are no statistics for convictions for drunk driving so we don't know what the situation is."

He said the government needed to urgently step up its action plan to curb drunk driving.

Transport Minister Sbu Ndebele has proposed that drivers be banned from having any alcohol in their blood.

The minister's spokesman, Logan Maistry, said that new initiatives linked to a United Nations campaign - a Decade of Action for Road Safety - would see drunk drivers facing harsher penalties as part of the government's zero-tolerance approach.

These would include the long-term suspension of a motorists's licence.

Maistry said that in 2006 the National Injury Mortality Surveillance System found that at least 58% of roads deaths were related to alcohol.

Two years later the surveillance system reported on the number of people killed in road accidents who had alcohol in their bloodstream. The statistics showed there had been a 6% increase since 2002.

This year saw the start of the UN's campaign - which runs until 2020 - to reduce the millions of injuries and deaths on roads around the world by half.

Local ambassadors for a Decade of Action include Zindzi Mandela and her daughter, Zoleka, whose daughter, Zenani, 13, was killed in a car crash after the opening concert of last year's Soccer World Cup.

The spokesman for the Road Traffic Management Corporation, Ashref Ismail said: "You should lose your job if you are caught drinking and driving.

"At the heart of it we have a culture of non-compliance, a culture of arrogance. People feel they can get away with it and that's why this type of offence increases."

Caro Smit from South Africans Against Drunk Driving (Sadd), blamed the number of drunk drivers on the lack of proper education on the effects of alcohol on driving skills. Drivers also had no idea how quickly liquor or spirits were expelled from the body.

Dembovsky said South Africa needed a "shock value" campaign so offending drivers "can be startled into the reality and dangers of the effects of drunk driving".

"We can no longer rely on people's morality and conscience to 'do the right thing' and not drive drunk. We have to show them why ... in a way that the message gets through once and for all."