I would like to believe technology is partly responsible for the drop in the Road Death Rate on South Africa’s roads.We’re so used to reading about the carnage on South African Roads
As of this morning the Department of Transport has announced that 1 150 people have died so far in traffic accidents since the beginning of the holiday season two weeks ago. The festive season always leaves a terrible after-taste.
One could compare this to actual war-zones: the few hundred who have died in the past year in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; or even the few thousand who’ve died in the past year in Iraq. 12 – 14 000 people a year die on South Africa’s roads. Yet our roads are no war-zone; they are filled with people happily going on vacation or travelling for work. And they are just as filled with mutilated wreckage and torn bodies.
Alas, the Arrive Alive Website reports that there has been a decrease
The festive season death toll on South Africa’s roads has dropped despite an increase in the number of cars and drivers, the department of transport said today.
Ntau Letebele, the department spokesperson, said 1 366 people had died in 1 168 crashes over the December 2006 period — a drop from 1 454 deaths in 2005. “This is despite the increase in vehicle population to 8.1 million and driver population to almost 7.7 million.”
Back to the Title of this post: How using your mobile phone will decrease the road death rates in South Africa even further.
It is illegal to talk (or MXit) on your cell phone while driivng in South Africa. What if you do not have your license yet and are always in the passenger seat? One of the sites we’ve built, iDRIVE.co.za the driving school locator, has gone mobile. You are now able to search and contact driving school instructors via your phones web browser.
Send the SAIDI certified driving schools SMS & email messages, at the came cost as using MXit (mobile data tranfer rates).
The multi-million-rand radio & TV ads are good for alerting your when to change the channel but I belive that education is the key to decreasing the high road death rate here in South Africa:
- Do practise learners tests & study online at a site like SALearners.co.za and
- Ensure that you, your family or friends are taught to drive by using quality driving schools found on iDRIVE.co.za
Both of these sites even arrivealive.co.za are run by one or 2 man teams.
Your Group of Web AddiCT(s); mission with iDRIVE.co.za is to decrease the road death rate in South Africa, Africa & then the world..
Impossible? People thought that to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful would be impossible, hello Google.
How you can help with our mission to decrease the road death rate: Make it your mission to drive more safely, obey the rules of the road and give our new wap site a go at http://www.idrive.co.za/m or http://www.idrive.co.za/mobile browse around and send us feedback via the [Support & Feedback] link http://www.idrive.co.za/mobile/contact at the bottom of every page. Your feedback is is always welcome, the Internet is about you, after all.
2 double O 7, your license to drive safely 
*Note to marketers
You’re probaly wondering how we’re going to get this out to the public, stay tuned.
** Note to you who code
You’re probably wondering how we created the wap site to be a mobile friendly mirror image of our online space, just ask.
