{"id":229569,"date":"2018-03-09T18:00:20","date_gmt":"2018-03-09T16:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=229569"},"modified":"2018-03-09T15:15:16","modified_gmt":"2018-03-09T13:15:16","slug":"new-ways-government-wants-to-clamp-down-on-speeding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/229569\/new-ways-government-wants-to-clamp-down-on-speeding\/","title":{"rendered":"New ways government wants to clamp down on speeding"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Department of Transport has published a list of safety changes it hopes to implement as part of a new \u2018draft roads policy<\/strong><\/a>\u2018, which aims to fundamentally improve South Africa\u2019s road systems.<\/p>\n

One of the key changes proposed in the policy is the establishment of new ‘zero tolerance zones’ – which aim to clamp down on South Africa’s massive speeding problem.<\/p>\n

The country has one of the highest road death rates in the world, with between 11,000 and nearly 15,000 killed annually over the past decade.<\/p>\n

To combat this, the department wants to use technology and statistical data to target specific areas for law enforcement.<\/p>\n

This includes using available speed data to determine which routes have speeding problems (where the speed limit is exceeded by more than 20% on average), and develop specific speeding programmes for these routes.<\/p>\n

Other areas that will get special attention are those with high pedestrian and alcohol-related crashes – especially because pedestrian-related accidents currently account for 40% of all incidents, the report said.<\/p>\n

The policy calls for a minimum of two hazardous locations or routes to be identified in each province to be actively monitored – where drivers would be punished as soon as they fail to adhere to any traffic laws<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The policy document suggests that the statistics used to guide these zones should be updated every quarter so that changes can be implemented and new zones can be identified.<\/p>\n

\n

Speed limits<\/strong><\/p>\n

The policy document does not make mention of any specific speed limit changes, but reducing limits has been brought up a number of times over the last few years and is standing policy within the department.<\/p>\n

The most recent\u00a0proposal<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>suggests\u00a0that speed limits be reduced from 60km\/h to 40km\/h in urban areas, from 100km\/h to 80km\/h in rural areas and from 120 to 100km\/h on freeways running through a residential area.<\/p>\n

However, the document does refer to other changes around speeding policy, with plans to introduce a more proactive approach to the issue through the use of Road Safety Audits (RSA).<\/p>\n

The department suggests that speed limits on roads should be tested against the operational speeds, and changes to speed limits should involve a multi-disciplinary team of traffic law enforcement personnel, and engineers and other relevant disciplines. These parties should determine and set the speed limits on roads.<\/p>\n

The policy document also mentions that enforcement actions on speed limits need a strategic review.<\/p>\n

“It should not be done to earn income from a municipality, but should be focused on improving road safety,” the department said.<\/p>\n

It is proposed that RSAs should become compulsory on all road projects, and that engineers should be trained to develop experience in these types of audits.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: Motorists could face a new \u2018congestion tax\u2019 and other fees to help fix roads<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s what you need to know about government’s plans for speeding laws in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":230645,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11119],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-229569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229569"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229957,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229569\/revisions\/229957"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}