ROAD SAFETY
Urgent need for Africa to put safety first
Consumers, government and the automotive industry must take the new Safer Choice Africa Award seriously
The announcement earlier in May of the Safer Choice Africa Award by international vehicle safety organisation Global NCAP is to be welcomed. SA and Africa have some of the highest road injury and fatality figures in the world with more than 14,000 deaths from more than 800,000 crashes annually. While SA is a signatory to the Decade of Action for Road Safety, which aims to reduce road deaths by half, the figures are not improving. Recently five people died in a zero-star rated Datsun Go when it was involved in a head-on collision with a Hyundai i10 in the Western Cape, both budget models. The sad loss of life again showed that the standards agencies are not taking safety as seriously as they should. Global NCAP, along with other organisations such as the UN and Automobile Association (AA), is calling for an end to zero-star cars. Their calls are not to do with business or profits, they are to try to save lives. There is, of course, the argument that is often put by car companies that...
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