Programme Director

HOD and HOM of DTSL

Traffic Station Managers

Senior Managers and staff from DTSL

 

I appreciate the opportunity to share this space with you today. We had an impactful and insightful meeting last year, where we all had the opportunity to contribute not only efforts but valuable ideas to strive for ever greater performance levels.

 

We are here to assess the impact of the Festive Season Operations 2023/4, the lessons we can learn and the areas of improvement, especially as the Easter Campaign is just around the corner. As we know, these operations form the backbone of broader operations to keep roads and communities safe over festive periods.

While we must focus on the areas where we fall short, I would like us to hone in and highlight those areas where we have done as well. We must remember the human element behind law enforcement. We must remember that we have people on the roads who take time away from their families, who are stationed along cold roads in the dark of night. People who also have fears just as they have hopes. We must never be scarce with our praise where it is due.

 

Several observations were made in our last meeting, elements which I believe we must revisit. Let us talk about issues of bribery. Let us admit when we do not follow lines of command or where we prove unable to learn from mistakes. Let us do our best to ensure the safety of our traffic officers and deal with resource and infrastructure limitations and deficiencies.

Let us continue to build on law enforcement collaborations everywhere, including with our neighbouring provinces. I am very in favour of the rotation of our major operations to each region - something which is strategically and tactically the best way to boost and support the functioning and learning in regions.

 

I believe we have made a commitment that we shall have a detailed in-house in-person debriefing after every major operation. I would like us to prioritise this immediately after, when the memory of the period is fresh and the learning from it can be direct.

I am appreciating that regions have the opportunity to present here. We will see that, although we share some common challenges, there are certain places faced with their particular and pressing concerns that we need to address accordingly.

Our festive season report shows healthy levels of operational activity. We have generally increased our visibility but for vehicles weighed, which points to the priority we must give to weighbridge infrastructure and management. I am appreciating the slight drop in speeding vehicles and generally the high numbers of road users we are able to reach.

 

I would like us to really collaborate and improve on the areas where we have operations reaching, especially young pedestrians, as we know that fatalities do not only involve drivers and [passengers of vehicles. Our second largest cohort in fatalities is pedestrians - this should motivate us to improve on broadening our reach.

I welcome the 33% reduction in fatal crashes and the 16% reduction in fatalities, as measured against the previous year. This, to me, shows our commitment, willingness and ability to work together towards achieving, as a great vision, festive periods free of accidents.

At this point allow me to express my sorrow at those who have lost their lives on our roads over this period. May God be with their families and may their souls rest in peace. Added to this I already want to take the opportunity to thank all of you who have gone out in numbers to ensure we saturate routes and be blue beacons of safety along our roads.

 

We must, moving forward, up our game and ensure that we are resolute in our zero tolerance approach to lawlessness. It is here, upon our reflection of our performance and our performance standards, our ways of working and our ways of working together - that we will build the foundation of ever increased levels of safety.   

I am, then looking forward to our presentations and frank deliberations on how we can make our roads even safer during our festive period and right through the year, I want us to feel free and lift up our concerns but also solutions and build a new commitment moving ahead.

I thank you