South Africa takes steps to combat fatalities

By: Drivers.com staff
Date: 1993-12-04

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This article originally appeared in Vol. 3, Number 4 of Driver/Education, in December, 1993

For more information on South Africa's driver education initiatives contact Dr. Sarel Smit or Dr. Pieter Venter at CENETS, Tel: (0148) 99-1063 or Fax: (0148) 99-2799.

Comparing traffic crash statistics between one country and another is a tricky business. A lot depends on how crashes and fatality rates are defined, on driving conditions, and on whether the comparison is based on miles driven, population, or number of cars. No matter how the comparison is set up, the Republic of South Africa comes out at or near the top of the list. Its fatality rate of 11.4 per 100 million km driven compares with 1.45 for the USA and 1.8 for Japan.

In recent years the republic has developed a systems management approach to dealing with its traffic safety problems. Its rapidly growing School Driver Education Program (SDEP) is part of that approach.

The SDEP started with a pilot program in a Capetown school in 1984. Today the SDEP is offered at almost 700 high schools throughout the republic-and organizers are trying to slow growth to ensure that infrastructure is properly developed and that quality is maintained.

SDEP's beginnings were modest. Wouter Smit, a traffic manager with the Capetown police, and Harry Attwood, a former traffic manager, borrowed a used car from a local dealer and pulled together a program that produced 80 graduates at Plumstead High School.

Volkswagen South Africa heard of the program's success and offered to supply Golf cars for an expanded program in 1984-South Africa's National Road Safety Year. Caltex Oil chipped in with fuel and lubricants. By the end of 1984 the SDEP course had been presented to 335 graduates with the help of nine teachers and local traffic officers.

A national Management Committee was formed with representatives of the sponsors, the Institute of Advanced Motorists, the National Road Safety Council (NRSC), and interested traffic departments. By 1990 over 10,000 students had been trained by 1,200 qualified teachers.

University Safety Education Centre

In 1987 the Centre for Education in Traffic Safety (CENETS) was formed at Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education. Headed by Dr. Sarel Smit, it's the only centre of its kind in Africa and is part of the Faculty of Education. CENETS is fully funded by the NRSC and carries out research into traffic safety and traffic safety education as well as providing support to the SDEP by offering training to high school teachers who wish to run programs in their schools. Traffic Safety Education is offered as an extra-curricular option to student teachers.

Driver training is one of the functional areas of a national Traffic Safety Management System (TSMS) that includes legislation, traffic safety education, vehicle registration/licensing, road and environment, adjudication, traffic information, medical rescue services, marketing, driver training, research and development, technology transfer, and traffic control/policing.

The TSMS has a working group for driver training that includes members of the National Management Committee that oversees the SDEP. The Management Committee has divided the country into eight regions, each with a regional committee. Schools that want to participate in the SDEP apply to the regional committees, which then forward the application to the National Management Committee.

The regional committees consist of: a chairman (a local traffic officer who also sits on the National Committee); a vice-chairman selected by the regional committee; representatives of the participating schools (principals and SDEP instructors); a representative of the provincial education department; representatives of the sponsors; some co-opted members; and a representative of the NRSC. The NRSC provides support in the form of instructor training, training manuals and administrative services.

Traffic safety education is another functional area of the TSMS, separate from that of driver training. CENETS director Smit is currently chairperson of this area, which is comprised of representatives of the departments of education for the various population groups, researchers, and people with expert knowledge in relevant areas. This functional area is responsible for public information campaigns about topics such as seatbelts and impaired driving.

Another important facet of this functional area is the development of educational materials that are fed into various areas of the school curriculum. Senior CENETS researcher Pieter Venter is currently preparing a manual on the integration of traffic safety material into the curriculum for senior primary grades 4 through 7. A colleague is doing the same thing for the pre-primary groups up to grade 3. Another of Dr. Smit's staff members has just concluded a master's thesis on the integration of traffic safety content into the biology curriculum of Grades 10 to 12.

The Strategic Plan

The climate of change in South Africa means that the SDEP will have to be sensitive and adaptable to changes going on around it as well as rapid change within. To that end it conforms to a strategic plan that provides for constant feedback, analysis, and restatement of objectives.

At the August, 1992 conference of the American Driver and Traffic Safety Education in Atlanta, Dr. Jaap Kroon, associate professor of business economics at Potchefstroom University, presented a model for strategic management under which the SDEP operates. In the strategic management plan, information about the internal and external environments is monitored and fed into a "SWOT" matrix. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats are identified and, using the matrix, a logical framework is developed for a systematic analysis of all the SDEP activities.

From the analysis, an implementation plan is developed. For example if strengths and opportunities predominate in the analysis, that sends the SDEP into an expansion mode. If weaknesses and threats predominate, then the system becomes more concerned with feedback, repair, and improvements.

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