RMI: Speed limit drop 'absurd'
2011-09-22 10:20
"ABSURD": The Retail Motor Industry reckons government should consider other ways to reduce road deaths, before dropping the national speed limit.
The Retail Motor Industry Organisation (RMI) has supported comment that has called transport minister Sibusiso Ndebele’s proposal to reduce the national speed limit from 120km/h to 100km/h as absurd.
RMI CEO Jeff Osborne said: “Our view is that there would be far greater value in the introduction of a periodic, compulsory vehicle testing regime as well as the introduction of the AARTO licence point demerit system.
“The RMI has been lobbying for compulsory, periodic vehicle testing for decades now and it still hasn’t happened. There are very few countries in the world where you can buy a car today and drive it untested for the next 20 years or until such time as you sell it. Currently, vehicles only have to have a roadworthy certificate when ownership changes hands.
'OUT OF KILTER'
"This is out of kilter with international best practices.”
He added: “The government should be instead urgently addressing the rampant levels of bribery and corruption within the country’s traffic law enforcement agencies, which has resulted in flagrant disregard for the rule of law, and of law enforcement officers, by motorists.
"Too much time is spent generating income for state coffers and not enough is being done to ensure discipline on the part of motorists through visible policing and through the clamping down of moving violations."
"In any event, there is no real evidence or proof to suggest that lowering speed limits results in reduced accident rates,” Osborne concluded.
The transport minister earlier this week called for better driving practises to reduce South Africa's high road traffic accident rate. Ndebele also said he would propose Cabinet consider dropping the country's national speed limit from 120km/h to 100km/h.
