With pedestrians accounting for about 40 per cent of the deaths on South African roads, more action needs to be taken to ensure jaywalkers are held more accountable. CARtoday.com looks at the situation.

With pedestrians accounting for about 40 per cent of the deaths on South African roads, more action needs to be taken to ensure jaywalkers are held more accountable.

The new Western Cape traffic fines seem to be geared towards the motorist having to take responsibility for the pedestrian. The fine for parking within nine metres of a pedestrian crossing will increase from R80 to R750 and motorists not complying with scholar patrol sign face a R1 000 penalty, up from R200.

But the fines don’t encourage pedestrians to take responsibility for their own actions, with jaywalking fines only increasing slightly. The penalty for pedestrians crossing the road when it is unsafe and the fine for causing danger when crossing a road have both gone up from R60 to R100.

Advocate Don Smart, motoring specialist and author of Guide to Motor Law, told CARtoday.com that more needed to be done to make pedestrians more aware, especially since jaywalking seemed to be a national sport in South Africa.

Apart from the jaywalking fines being low, Smart says the bigger problem is that the legislation and penalties are not enforced. “Pedestrian traffic management and law enforcement is virtually non-existent. Authorities even erect warning signs on a freeway about pedestrian danger, yet it is illegal for pedestrians to cross a freeway.”

“I know of only one prosecution in the almost 30 years I have been involved in traffic law enforcement,” he said.

“If a pedestrian crosses a road and a motorist collides with that person, the driver is held liable. The motorist is charged with negligent driving and, if the case goes to court, all the prosecution has to prove is that the motorist was one per cent negligent to get a conviction.

“They will ask you what avoidance measures you took and if there was any way you could have prevented knocking the pedestrian. It is very difficult as a motorist to prove that you tried everything to stop or avoid the collision. The pedestrian, however, is not prosecuted,” he said.

Automobile Association spokesperson Petro Kruger agreed, but said the problem was trying to issue fines for jaywalking. She said a motorist had a traceable registration number if they were fined, but it was more difficult with pedestrians as the officials had to rely on their word, she said.

Kruger said the AA also had a problem with the signs on freeways warning motorists about pedestrians. “Pedestrians are not allowed on freeways yet there are signs warning motorists to look out for them and that is against legislation. We have questioned the Department of Transport about this issue and they just say that it is too difficult to monitor pedestrians and they would rather warn motorists that there are people crossing the roads,” she said.

One way of ensuring pedestrian stay off the roads is to build more bridges. The cost could possibly be picked up by companies, who advertise on billboards alongside the roads. Instead of putting up billboards, a company could build a pedestrian bridge and have their logo on it.

But Kruger said pedestrians do not seem to want to use the bridges. “If there is a hole in the fence next to a bridge then pedestrians will cross the road at that point rather than cross the bridge. Education and destruction-proof fencing may help. Pedestrians need to understand that warning signs are there for their safety, not the motorists’,” she said.

Original article from Car