The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality’s Traffic Services recently took to the streets, educating and testing alcohol levels in drivers at Gqeberha’s major taxi ranks, as the Metro launched a new road safety programme which seeks to deal with the drinking and driving problem in the Bay.
This comes after the Metro’s successful Transport Month programme in October, which exposed a drinking and driving problem after a total of 131 arrests were made in one month. NMBM Safety and Security Mayoral Committee Member, Councillor Stag Mitchell, said that the statistics indicated a concerning increase when compared to the 105 drinking and driving arrests made during October 2022.
In an effort to change the behaviour of drivers, the metro launched the self-test breathalyser programme as one of the strategies to be used to encourage responsible and safe driving to minimise accidents and save lives. The programme was launched at the Terminus and Njoli taxi ranks in Gqeberha.
“The statistics are worrying to all of us; we continue to do law enforcement but every Monday our traffic infrastructure is destroyed by drunk drivers. These high drunk-driving arrests do not excite us, in fact they worry us as it means that drivers do not take this issue seriously,” said Mitchell. “We will be happy once we arrest five drunk drivers per month; that will mean people are adhering to the rules of the road.”
“By implementing this programme, we are partnering with all stakeholders and giving back the responsibility of road safety to the drivers. Drivers must test themselves and hold themselves accountable if they are above the limit. If you are drunk, call an Uber or call a sober friend to take you home. Do not drink and drive, you are putting your own life and other people’s lives in danger.
”Stakeholders, including the Eastern Cape Department of Transport and taxi associations operating in NMBM, supported the programme.
Eastern Cape Department of Transport deputy director for Provincial Traffic Law Enforcement, Charles Bramwell, said that the programme would play a significant role in empowering drivers to take informed decisions.
“We wish to have these breathalysers in our taxi ranks too. We are very happy about this new initiative. As taxi owners we have a problem of drivers taking our vehicles and being involved in accidents while they are drunk. As the taxi associations we welcome the move,” said PEDITA’s Thandi Kama. NMBM will roll out the programme across the metro with a special focus on distributing the breathalysers at taxi ranks, churches, taverns and nightclubs among other places.
