The Western Cape Mobility Department, on Friday 29 September, launched its 18th instalment of the annual October Transport Month campaign at the Huguenot Toll Plaza near Paarl, which will run throughout the festive season with this year’s focus being on road safety across all modes of transport.
The campaign will focus on, among others, road safety education, traffic law enforcement, fleet services, scholar transport safety, farmworker transport safety and freight management.
The department will offer free vehicle testing for scholar transport operators at its Gene Louw traffic college in Brackenfell on 3 and 4 October.
The department highlighted that the school holiday is the ideal time to check the roadworthiness of vehicles and encouraged scholar transport operators to take advantage of this opportunity.
In his opening remarks Ricardo Mackenzie, MEC for Mobility in the province, commended traffic- and law-enforcement officers for their resilience in responding to last week’s floods.
He said: “I’m very glad that the sun is out again as we continue with our mop-up operations after the devastating floods. Our provincial traffic officers have done us very proud with their hard work in keeping everyone safe on the roads during the flooding disaster.”
Throughout the campaign provincial traffic officers will be highly visible across the province with a 24/7 presence on the roads.
A key component of the campaign’s operations will be fatigue management to educate road users about this “silent killer” and enforce mandatory rest where necessary.
“We will continue to make sure that we will play our part as the Western Cape Government to make our roads safer,” Mackenzie said, “and we have many educational activities planned for this month. We also ask you as road user to play your part by being responsible on our roads.”
He said one highlight of the campaign will be the launch of a new junior traffic training college on 19 October in Paarl.
“We have created a dedicated facility to teach children about road safety. These children are our most important ambassadors and we are investing in their development into road-safety champions and responsible road users.”
