You can bend a tree when it is still young.
And getting children to understand the rules of the road is the goal of a new junior traffic centre launched in Mitchells Plain.
In promoting traffic safety, the centre was built by the City of Cape Town, facilitated by non-profit organisation the South African Road Federation (SARF) along with other private sector sponsors.
On Friday 15 March, Mayco member for safety and security, JP Smith, and for urban mobility, Rob Quintas, was joined by provincial minister for mobility Ricardo Mackenzie in opening the centre based at the Weltevreden Recreation Centre in Rocklands.
With blue and red plastic scooters as the cars, Grade 2 learners of Hillside Primary School were the first to give the centre a spin.
The course is a miniature road set up, equipped with a traffic circle, bends and raised intersections, speed humps, zebra crossings, parking bays, working traffic lights for both vehicles and pedestrians, road signs including a stop; yield; train crossing and no stopping among other signs.
During the demonstration, the learners had the chance to be both pedestrians and drivers, learning the various rules to follow.
a big difference
The entire course has been created with reclaimed asphalt.
“As the City’s Urban Mobility Directorate, we recognise that we can make a big difference in society when we work with children, the young ones here today and their friends outside. If we can instil good driver habits and awareness of road safety rules in our young people, then I am certain that in 10 years from now, we will have a new kind of driver, a better type of driver,” says Quintas.
Mackenzie reiterated these sentiments.
Referring to the tragic accident which claimed the lives of six children in May last year, he said the driving culture needed to be changed from young.
Hilton Scholtz an engineer having worked in road design for a number of years says speed limits are not suggestions, but rather designed with safety in mind. “We create a safe road, we cannot plan for behaviour,” he says.
With these initiatives in mind, Scholtz says he is positive we will see better road users in 10 to 15 years time, when these little ones take to the roads.
The booking will be done through the designated safety traffic officer assigned to work and visit with schools in the area. The facility will be maintained by the City’s roads infrastructure management department and operated by the Traffic Service’s Road Safety Education Unit.
The unit regulates traffic around pedestrian crossings near schools; coaches scholar patrols on how to regulate traffic at crossings and conducts educational lectures around road safety at schools and Early Childhood Development Centres.
The new facility further expands on the work already done in the area.
Between 1 July 2022 and 31 May 2023, the Road Safety Education Unit presented 245 classroom lectures to 10 148 children at 29 schools and ECDs in Mitchells Plain.“Our road safety education unit does incredible work, and in a single year, reaches thousands of learners., says Smith.
