Disregard of traffic laws – who will take responsibility?

I REFER to two previous letters with regards to the disregard of traffic rules.

The first was by ‘Annoyed’ on 1 May regarding a political party’s vehicle parked in a disabled parking space and the aggressive behaviour of the driver when he was confronted.

The second was by ‘My Opinion’ on 29 May referring to instructors allowing learner drivers to skip stop signs.

Two things come to mind immediately; the first is incompetence and the other is non-assertiveness.

Incompetence is the failure to understand reason, the consequences of breaking a simple traffic rule, or inability to understand the reason to adhere to certain rules.

Incompetent instructors are also a huge concern.

The accompanying photo illustrates a driving school instructor’s illegal parking. When confronted, his words were: ‘Nothing wrong to park here, I’m not in the way of anybody’, hence my remark of failure to understand the reason why one has to adhere to rules.

Lack of assertiveness on the part of traffic officials is certainly one of the bigger contributors to traffic violations.

I have seen cases where a taxi passed a traffic official on a solid line, and the traffic official did not seem to notice.

On another occasion, a traffic official stopped at a red robot near Brackenham when a taxi skipped the red robot, overtaking the cop car, missing the vehicle on the other side by millimetres. Once again the traffic cop did not even flinch.

I once confronted a traffic official at the Mondi robots who allowed two cars to skip the red robot, forcing traffic from the sides to stop to avoid a collision. His words: ‘I did not see it’. If he didn’t see it, there’s nothing that he is guilty of, and he will continue to use that as an excuse, because there are no steps in place to force him to open his eyes.

We all know that if things don’t change, it will remain as is. For things to change, someone has to take responsibility.

HOPEFUL