The South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) has joined forces with provincial and municipal road authorities to collectively work towards safer roads this holiday season.
Multi-disciplinary teams will be deployed around the clock to improve safety and respond to any calls for assistance from road users.
“To accommodate increased holiday traffic volumes all conventional construction work will cease on Thursday 14 December, until the second week in January 2024,” said Randall Cable, Sanral’s western region manager.
The Routine Road Maintenance teams will, however, remain on standby throughout the holidays, as they are part of the first responders in the event of any incidents on the national road network.
In partnership with the provincial government and the City of Cape Town, Sanral, through the Freeway Management System, monitors more than 500 km of the busiest freeways. “Our operators are able to identify and activate the appropriate response to any incident on the FMS freeway network in under three minutes,” Cable added, “and the teams works round the clock to assist and keep traffic flowing seamlessly.”
Any incident on the road should be reported to the various Central Communication Centres, from where the most appropriate response is dispatched.
Location marker boards (or blue marker boards, as they are commonly called) are located every 200 m on national routes. These boards give the name of the route, the particular section of the road, and the kilometre distance.
“Find your closest board and note the details so that the operator is able to direct the response team to an accurate location,” said Cable.
Sanral urged all road users to adhere to the rules of the road and to remember that roads are a shared space where the responsibility for road safety is also shared. “While Sanral is committed to engineering safer roads, the cooperation of each road user is critical if we are to curb the spate of lives lost on our roads every year,” Cable explained.
“As road users, we need to take individual responsibility to make better road safety choices. From a road authority perspective, we can continue to create an environment that is more forgiving and self-explaining, as well as one which is more conducive to road user compliance. Together we can reduce the carnage on our roads.”
To report road incidents in specific regions of the Cape, contact:
. Cape Town Metro – 021 480 7700 or 107;
. Cape Winelands – 023 346 6000;
. Central Karoo – 023 449 8000 or 023 449 8250;
. Garden Route – 044 805 5071;
. Overberg – 028 212 9111; and
. West Coast – 022 433 8700.
