I have come across a rather alarming story about thousands of road safety posters that lie unused. I would like to share this on the Road Safety Blog:
“Thousands of road safety posters – some have been lying about for years – are piling up in an office of the provincial Department of Community Safety because there is not enough staff to put them up.
The posters warn people not to drink and drive, speed or talk on their cellphones while driving, among other safety messages.
Richard Benson, who heads the Road Safety Action Campaign, said he had spotted the posters “practically piling up to the ceiling” at a provincial traffic office in Goodwood about eight years ago.
He had been told that the office did not have enough staff to put up the posters.
Ben Noyiha, deputy director for the Department of Community Safety’s road safety directorate, confirmed that they had up to 10 000 posters, which they kept in a small storeroom.
He also acknowledged that the reason they did not distribute them was because they did not have enough staff.
Benson took some of the posters and put them up at a number of public buildings, such as libraries.
“I put a few up but I cannot do it alone,” he said. “Ever since that day, I’ve been calling them continuously, requesting them to put the posters up but nothing has been done yet. Years later, they’re still there.”
Benson said the posters were especially important during the festive season, when there was “utter carnage” on the roads as people made their way to holiday spots.
The posters, he believed, would help act as “sleeping policemen” and help curb reckless driving.
“In recent weeks, we’ve had many young people die in accidents. It’s a scandal that those posters are just languishing, unused, when they could save lives.”
Benson said he had even written to Transport and Public Works MEC Robin Carlisle in an attempt to get someone to put them up.
Noyiha said that while they did have many posters in hand, there was not “a room full of them”.
Some of them dated back years, as the directorate had not had posters printed in three years. Most of them, however, belonged to the national government’s Road Traffic Management Corporation, which regularly printed posters and sent them to the different provinces for distribution.
But Noyiha said their directorate only had nine employees in the entire province, a number of whom were based in faraway towns such as Beaufort West and Stellenbosch.
“Very often, the RTMC develops and prints posters without consulting the provinces.
“We have very few staff members, who are constantly busy on the ground with other road safety campaigns like roadblocks. It is especially busy for us during the festive season.”
He said the posters were always accessible to the public in case they wanted to put up a few posters at schools, libraries and other buildings.”
[This article by Leila Samodien was originally published on page 5 of The Cape Argus on December 20, 2009]