Latest news with #LeeRandall
The Citizen
28-05-2025
- General
- The Citizen
Broken electrical box on Louis Botha Avenue fixed after months of outages and frustration
Broken electrical box on Louis Botha Avenue fixed after months of outages and frustration After five months of ongoing power disruptions, theft, and mounting frustration, the damaged electrical box on Louis Botha Avenue has finally been repaired. The trouble began in December 2024, when a police chase resulted in damage to the box. Since then, the exposed unit has become a repeated target for theft, causing multiple power outages for nearby residents and businesses. Read more: Broken electrical box on Louis Botha Avenue fixed after months of outages and frustration Although not entirely without power, the community faced months of instability. Despite logging complaints through the City Power app, and appealing for a temporary cover, the box remained vulnerable… Until now. Also read: City Power confirms 100% electricity reinstatement in Johannesburg Central Business District after explosion 'I'm very pleased that the issue is finally resolved,' said Ward 74 councillor Belinda Kayser-Echeozonjoku. 'But it should not have taken months of pressure from residents, the media, and myself to reach this point.' Resident Dr Lee Randall said the drawn-out response highlighted broader problems. 'A relatively simple issue revealed serious inefficiencies – poor communication, wasted resources, and a lack of accountability. This shouldn't be the norm.' Kayser-Echeozonjoku is now calling for a full audit of transformers in the ward, as well as a stronger, co-ordinated approach to infrastructure protection. She hopes for a productive discussion on the issue at a community meeting on May 27 at Putan's Sports Club. While the box is finally fixed, residents say the bigger problem lies in the system that allowed it to drag on for so long. Follow us on our Whatsapp channel, Facebook, X, Instagram and TikTok for the latest updates and inspiration! Have a story idea? We'd love to hear from you – join our WhatsApp group and share your thoughts! Related article: City of Johannesburg shares how disconnection of water and electricity works At Caxton, we employ humans to generate daily fresh news, not AI intervention. Happy reading!
Daily Maverick
07-05-2025
- Automotive
- Daily Maverick
After the Bell: Road safety and the limits of legislation — why enforcement and culture matter
It's something of a curiosity why SA, which has very strict rules on drunk driving, seat belts and speeding, doesn't seem to be making progress in making the roads safer. The biggest problem with driving in South Africa is that local drivers tend to regard traffic rules as suggestions rather than laws. In a lot of places in SA, particularly taxi drivers don't even rise to that level of mental attitude, and you can see that by the way taxi drivers don't even slow down for red robots late at night. The result is a huge number of deaths on the road. South Africa's road fatality rate is one of the worst in the world, at about 26 per 100,000, compared with Brazil at 15.6 and the world average of 17. The real killer weekend is, of course, Easter, although this year the death rate declined substantially. The 167 deaths recorded was the lowest number in the past three years, representing a 46% decline from 2024. Unfortunately, this might have been a bit fortuitous since the number of Easter deaths is very variable, and 2024 was a particularly bad year, so the base was high. The 2025 result was actually a bit higher than 2022, when 162 people died. In 2018, there were a shocking 510 deaths. Recently, an organisation called Zutobi, an online driver education platform, published a report which said SA had, in fact, the most dangerous roads to drive on in the world. The report doesn't only use motor accident deaths, it also includes in its rankings seat belt usage rates, maximum speed limits and the number of accidents involving alcohol. The fact-checking website AfricaCheck slightly got on its high horse about these stats, pointing out that the survey includes only 53 countries, heavily weighted towards developed countries. The World Bank actually has a more comprehensive list, although it's now a bit dated. In this list, SA's road accident mortality rate is listed at 22 per 100,000, and puts SA more or less in the middle. The 22 per 100,000 figure is comparable with countries at a similar economic level. Africa Check quotes Dr Lee Randall, an independent researcher on road safety and co-founder of the Road Ethics Project, as saying, 'The surveys are not scientifically sound. They [Zutobi] do not explain how they selected the countries they analysed, and don't justify why they are based on a sample which is heavily skewed towards high-income and upper-middle income countries and omits every single low-income country in the world.' Ok, you know, nobody wants to be listed as the worst in the world when you are not. But the problem is that Zutobi doesn't score countries by the death rate only, but by things such as road traffic deaths attributed to alcohol. And by this measure, SA is just terrible: almost double the rate of the second-worst country on the list, which is Ireland. South Africa's death rate is not only high because of high levels of drunk driving, but also because of a large number of pedestrian deaths. In the most recent results, for example, the Western Cape reported 22 road deaths over the Easter weekend, and of these fatalities, 14 were pedestrians, five were passengers, two were drivers and one was a motorcyclist. It does suggest that SA's education programmes about dangerous driving should also be aimed at pedestrians. The good news is that the World Bank figures suggest that road accident deaths are declining around the world. In developed countries, they almost don't exist. Sweden had two motor accident deaths in 2019, the World Bank's latest figures show. It's something of a curiosity why SA, which has very strict rules on drunk driving, seat belts and speeding, doesn't seem to be making progress in making the roads safer. SA has been at the bottom of the Zutobi list for the past three years, and before that was second-last. The problem is, of course, as with so many other parts of SA's legal system, enforcement. Anecdotally, I suspect the main problem is also cultural. If you go to a supper party in Europe, for example, it will typically be a subject of conversation on who the designated non-drinker is… and if the designated non-drinker drinks, there is a lot of tut-tutting. That never happens in SA – and it shows. DM
