Who else has noticed that during holidays when school-going pupils are home, our roads are more passable because there is usually less traffic?
These road users and pupils traverse the road as passengers mostly, but also pedestrians, precariously so.
This is caused by the fact that as non-motorised traffic, they share the road space with motorised traffic, yet there is no provision for pedestrians on all our roads. As motorists, parents and all types of road users, we have never paused to think about road safety, from the perspective of a child going to and from school.
This lot are vulnerable on the road, from the manner they are transported to school in family cars, public service vehicles, organised transport, walking or crossing to school. While they may be at fault themselves, oftentimes than not, they are subjected to such a horrific plight on the road by negligent driving and other unduly and dangerous road user behaviour.
Debate at Duze High School on Friday, September 19, 2025
Sincephetelo Motor Vehicle Accidents Fund (SMVAF) in collaboration with The Royal Police Services have requested teachers in the Lubombo Region, the Debate Committee, to organise a talking show in the form of debates within the surrounding schools along the MR8 Hhelehhele/Lavumisa Road.
The principal intent for this engagement is gathering ideas, analysis and the road safety perspective from the minds of pupils. These are high school children who experience and are exposed to the dangers of the road along this route. Others come as victims and there have been situations where lives of pupils have been lost through negligent driving of motor vehicle drivers. The participating schools are Gilgal, Sibusisweni Phonjwane, Duze, Siphofaneni, Mkhweli, Emnotfweni and Maphilingo high schools.
These schools have been selected from 14 others, both primary and high schools along MR8 who can be estimated to be about 1 000-8 000 pupils as road users.
While the ideas may not be from all the schools along this road, those selected schools to debate will surely be representing all the young road users and pupils in the area.
Who causes accidents between motorists and walkers?
This verbal tug of war is predominantly centred around arguments as to who is often at fault during the causation of traffic accidents between pedestrians, be it pupils or general members of the public and motorists. Such occurrences are almost always circumstantially blamed on one part, when the other end could have helped in prevention of same.
From a child’s perspective, let us all converge at Duze High School on Friday, September 19, 2025, to find out how they perceive where the problem lies.
It may lie with parents ferrying their children to school, who may be pre-occupied with cellphones, get distracted and potentially cause an accident or another parent who is in a hurry to drop off their children at school, and undermine the safety of other pupils by speeding through or past designated road markings. Children can always see these things but are not given the chance to articulate them. These debate engagements are deemed very instrumental in reaping ideas from pupils and coining same into strategic interventions to combat traffic accidents, especially those that affect school-going children during the course of the academic terms.
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