Five lessons from South Africa’s drive-slow protests

The slow driving of a platoon of vehicles on major arterial roads in South Africa is becoming the most popular form of protest. Minibus taxi operators, metered taxis, farmers and truckers are seeing this as an effective way to deliver their message to relevant authorities.

Why is this form of protest becoming popular? And why is it effective?

While you are thinking, here are some five lessons to take from this form of protest for transport planning and management in general.

Lesson 1: Speed of travel is increasingly becoming a precious commodity

How much are you prepared to pay for speed? In future, you will have to consciously answer this question because speed of travel is becoming a precious commodity. In fact, many countries are increasingly investing in their city transport systems to guarantee network speeds. Cities that are able to guarantee travel speeds in the future will become more competitive. They will become preferred locations for families, professionals and businesses. The higher the speeds, and reliable from day to day, the more attractive these cities will become.

Real estate industry will have to pay particular attention to latest transport network developments. This is because buyers will prefer properties that guarantee a quality of life that is partly defined in terms of guaranteed travel speeds between the properties of interest and key land uses.

A question that residents in any city should be asking their local government today is “what network speeds are you investing in for my area?” But also, individuals and businesses should increasingly ask themselves “how are we willing to change our travel behaviour to contribute towards improved transport network operations?” 

 Lesson 2: Our society is becoming transport-aware

Not so long ago the transport-related problems that communities in cities complained about related mostly to potholes. Malfunctioning traffic lights became another big problem together with increased poor driving. While the availability of public transport has always been an issue in many communities, complaints are increasingly becoming about the overall quality of public transport services. Trade unions are increasingly mobilising their members to demand “affordable, safe and reliable public transport” services.

Could it be that transport will soon become a principal voting issue in South Africa? This would in turn mean political parties would need to ensure that their manifestos are as transport-aware as society is becoming.

Lesson 3: Our settlement patterns are becoming increasingly sparse even with higher densities

Protesters come from many faraway places to converge at a specific place and time. Upon assembling, the departure must be seamless.

In areas like Gauteng Province gross population density is increasing but travel distances are either staying the same or getting longer. This is despite the many interventions such as urban edge frameworks, promotion of in-fill developments, etc., since the dawn of progressive spatial policies. The message from this observation is that the behaviour of our built environment is not as well understood as we think.

Also, many city planners have an obsession with increased settlement densities. Often their arguments are misplaced because densities are not panaceas for improved built environment performance. In fact, badly implemented, increased densities could harm the built environment.

Planners ought to continuously challenge their many assumptions. Therefore understanding choice behaviour of actors in the built environment will become important for the planner of the future.

Lesson 4: While driving continues to reinforce narcissism, investment in experimental road safety research is critical for sustainable solutions

Not only is driving popularly associated with improved social standing, but sitting behind a wheel tends to infuse some level of invincibility. Virility increases with the size and/or speed of the car. But it gets a bit more complicated than this.

Driver behaviour is such a poorly understood and under-researched area. This is particularly concerning because we attribute so much of road crashes to driver behaviour. Poor investment in this area of research has led to many random interventions that have either worsened the situation or have become a farce.

Experimental research in road safety should receive priority in South Africa. This will help with the improved implementation of such things as the driver point-demerit system.

Lesson 5: Arterial roads are the vascular system of international trade

The impact of the road protests is not only felt locally but internationally as well. This is because our road network (as well as rail, seas and air) forms part of the arteries, veins and capillaries (vascular system) of international trade. A malfunction vascular systems in a human body is not able to deliver essential nutrients and oxygen where required, and it is also unable to remove waste. In a short space of time such a body would surrender.

Would you trust your own vascular system with anyone who wants to operate on it? Yet, we often do this with our trade vascular system.

Investing in the skilling of our cities to run our trade vascular system is an urgent need. Often the relevant departments in our cities are ill-resourced and susceptible to severe budget cuts, making us complicit in the killing of our cities.

About the author: Mathetha Mokonyama leads the transport systems and operations at the CSIR. He has research interests in the development and application of methodologies for translating society’s transport-related needs into appropriate transport policy, designs, plans and associated management systems.