Heavy duty vehicles and trucks have always been a problem on our roads, but since the collapse of Transnet freight trains, we are now forced to coexist with heavy load trucks that have become an additional hazard.
It is terrifying. Day or night, driving on the main national routes and trying to maneuver around the enormous, sometimes 19-meter-long truck traveling at 80km/h and veering sideways has become a nightmare.
Due to two decades of corruption, Parastatal Transnet, under which South Africa’s freight rail trains fall, has deteriorated and deteriorated over the years.
While all forms of freight are being diverted away from the railroads, our highways are suffering. It’s not humorous that other motorists are inconvenienced on the nation’s busiest roads, particularly the Mpumalanga coal corridor to the coastal port cities of Richards Bay and Durban.
We have watched, especially on social media, convoys of heavily loaded vehicles transporting various types of hazardous materials through urbanized regions. A prime example is the December accident in Boksburg, Ekurhuleni, where the death toll has subsequently grown to 41.
If Transnet is still mostly in charge of freight rail transport, why do we have to deal with huge convoys of trucks, some of which are more than 200m long, slowly winding through urban areas, impeding traffic, and disturbing livelihoods?
The tenth-longest road network in the world, South Africa’s 750 000 km road network is not completely administered by Sanral. The body only administers 21,403 kilometers, while provinces manage 47,300 kilometers and municipalities handle 51,600 kilometers.
All levels of government are accountable for the deplorable condition of our roads.
More trucking and road-based logistics companies prefer moving their “goods” via the road network, as opposed to the unreliable rail, adding to the difficulties of motorists.
Several case studies ascribe the desire for road transit to corruption-related vandalism, despite the fact that the situation has been rendered intolerable by two years of extensive Covid-19 lockdowns.
“Between January and March of 2021, more than 150 million tons of freight were transported by road, compared to only 40 million tons by rail. Over 6,000 trucks pass through the Tugela toll plaza on a daily basis, which is extremely near to pre-pandemic levels and demonstrates the recovery of road freight.
“Additionally, other truck indicators report extremely high truck counts in metropolitan areas such as Nelson Mandela Bay, Johannesburg, and Tshwane,” the Ctrack Freight Transport Index reported last April.
Coal and iron ore exports, the highest-earning commodities for the country’s budget, are now being transported by road to the coastal ports, which is utterly incredible.
There has been a significant decrease in the volume of products transported by Transnet as a result of the rerouting of coal to trucks as a result of years of deferred repair and uncertainty on whether the items would reach their intended destination. Similar to Eskom’s inability to deliver a steady electricity supply to the country, Transnet attributes the deteriorating reliability of the train system to frequent vandalism.
Once again, social media has been instrumental in revealing the dangers that big load trucks pose to motorists. The Road Traffic Management Corporation informed the public a year ago that it was examining the viral video of a speeding truck. No report about the investigation was made public. We are currently awaiting.
I must hasten to add that the mess on our roads is now the responsibility of Fikile Mbalula’s replacement as transport minister.
As motorists, notably heavy load truck drivers, we must endure traveling on deplorable and hazardous roads, a condition made worse by years of neglect resulting in potholes, vandalized street lights, and broken robots, all of which contribute to the consequent road carnage.
»Our roads cannot withstand the load«