How to avoid roadblocks in South Africa

Posted on December 31st, 2008 by Richard Catto 5,216 views

South African government officials and traffic authorities are not happy with a new service started by a Belgian company, Etri (First to Know), to help road users evade traffic road blocks and stay out of jail.

The Get Road Smart service is a cell phone subscription service which sends SMSes to your mobile alerting you to the presence of speed traps and mobile road blocks set up to catch drunk drivers (and now also drug users).

The service was introduced into KZN recently and has proven popular. It has now been extended to cover Johannesburg and Cape Town.

The service also operates in Belgium, Portugal, the Netherlands, Italy and the United Kingdom.

Controversy surrounds the service. Bheki Cele, Transport MEC, feels that it defeats the ends of justice. Collen Msibi , National Transport Department spokesperson,  said the department did not support it either.

Managing Director of Etri, Vincent Parisis, had this to say:

“Officials and politicians may not like the service, but it is legal. We have been in this business for a long time and it is 100 percent legal. We are not promoting drinking and driving or speeding.

In other countries we even go so far as putting in place the bring-home taxi service for people who drink too much.

Parisis said the service contributed to preventing people from drinking and driving and speeding.

The natural response when people receive information about speed and alcohol checks is they will change their behaviour.

They will stop drinking alcohol or slow down. This is exactly what happens when people receive our SMS.”

What do you think? Is this service valuable or will it hamper traffic authorities ability to crack down on bad road users?

Sources:
Roadblock tip-off service to spread
Road block tip-off SMS angers officials

Tags: ETRI, Roadblocks, Vincent Parisis
Filed under Roadblocks |

11 Responses to “How to avoid roadblocks in South Africa”

1. Lenny Says:
   January 1st, 2009 at 18:12

   What a great service for the drunk driver on the go!

2. Richard Catto Says:
   January 1st, 2009 at 20:26

   Haha. Of course anyone driving their vehicle erratically is going to attract the attention of patrols.

3. Eric Says:
   January 5th, 2009 at 12:01

   Nothing wrong with warning people not to break the law.

4. Richard Catto Says:
   January 5th, 2009 at 13:08

   @Eric: One of the concerns raised by the authorities is that this service will allow wanted criminals to evade roadblocks and thus escape arrest. Roadblocks are equipped with a handheld machine (Morpho Touch) used to scan finger prints. If an outstanding warrant exists for the person, they are arrested on the spot.

5. Eben Says:
   January 5th, 2009 at 17:05

   This is great!!! we had the same thing in mind, we have 5 vans on the road and they need to do lots of dropps per day, if they knew where they were gonna get held up – well jobs will be done much faster. this is a great service !!!! i have some more ideas regards to this service!!!!! call me WEBMASTER!!! we can make this work EVEN better in RSA

6. Richard Catto Says:
   January 5th, 2009 at 18:25

   @Eben: I suggest you contact Etri directly via their web site which is linked in the article above.

7. Sybergypsy Says:
   January 6th, 2009 at 19:07

   Damned if you do and damned if you don’t: this seems to apply to the topic, it won’t be to the goverment’s advantage if “wanted criminals” can evade roadblocks, and yet legal business(es) seem to welcome this thing as it will reduce delays en route… bit ambiguous if you ask me?

   Then again, who asked me….?

8. Richard Catto Says:
   January 6th, 2009 at 19:51

   @Sybergypsy: It will be interesting to see if this service is a hit in Cape Town. A lot of businesses don’t succeed here because Capetonians are a hard sell. The monthly subscription of R50 will probably put a lot of people off.

9. Barrie Lovell Says:
   August 12th, 2009 at 07:58

   I CURRENTLY BELONG TO
   GET ROADSMART.DOES
   THAT INCLUDE BOOZE TRAPS?
   I HAVE NEVER SEEN A WARNING EVEN WHEN THE SHARKS FANS WERE TARGETED.

10. electronicnerdmbd Says:
    August 5th, 2010 at 09:52

    I think Roadblock warning is good. The perception exist, that it is there to help criminals defeat the ends of justice. Policing and roadblocks is not only a burden to criminals but too the non-criminal public as well.
    Some people are sick and tired of having their wonderful evening out with wife, girlfriend or friends to be spoiled by being pulled over by police for no reason, being shouted and treated like a criminal while bold headed cops look for reasons to incriminate you. Then I don’t even talk about unlawful arrests and people arrested for referring to their constitutional rights.

    After every roadblock I went in, cops talked to me as if I’m a common crook. Asking me over and over and over for no good reason. “did you drink”, where I’m going, why, and what am I going to do. This is enough to upset anyone even my passenger, so that I just turn around with an wonderfully planned evening that is already spoiled before it even started.
    Then police say it’s for your own good. The one evening my friends car got stolen, it took 1.5 hours for the police to get there and do nothing because there is no resources. Sit another hour in which we could have been searching for the car to do paperwork and drink our coffee.

    The funny thing is, the same evening I went through the last roadblock, 5min later a Golf on the N1, drove in front of me from a still standing position, from the side of the road almost causing a hell of a accident.

    So road blocks are their for road safety and to stop serious crime. So I wonder, what does roadblocks help to prevent accidents? A car driving right in front of you without looking? Or a guy jumping a red light? Changing lanes without watching? or help to prevent my breaks from failing as what happen to me once? They do not do a technical inspection on the breaks at a roadblock, they do not prevent the steeling of my friends car, or the rape of 140 women in the western cape in a day. What do they help if it takes 1.5 hours for the police to arrive, because 5 vehicles are standing at the roadblock checking license disks and tires and writing fines as much as they can.

    The other day me and my mother had a burglar on gunpoint for almost 2hours before the police saw it by accident in front of our house. This after we called them 5 times because they don’t have resources. 50000 people still murdered in South Africa. What security are the police talking about, the hour of paperwork they do after words, or the fine they issue for not wearing a seatbelt or parking at the wrong side of the road?

    After a roadblock the police do not brag about how many lives they saved, murders they prevented or rape cases they solved. No, they brag about how R72000 fines they wrote and how many people they could arrest for traffic violations and outstanding fines. Go look on their web site, that is how they measure success. They look around looking for anything they can possibly hold against driver even a license disc mounted skew.

    I am a law obeying citizen with no criminal record and maintain sober habits, but I will try every means to avoid roadblocks to prevent, my lovely planned evening from being spoiled by bold headed cops and often racist metro police who like to use that typical police tone with you. “Get out of the vehicle sir!. I said get out of the vehicle sir!!, now!”

    I don’t think there is any evidence to prove that a person, pissed off, angry, upset driving out of a roadblock under the influence of pumping rage and adrenaline is safer on the road than someone under the influence of alcohol. I’ve seen many accidents caused by rage, anger or frustration rather than alcohol. Adrenaline it self is as intoxicating and mind altering as much or even more than alcohol.

    The media is used to make people so afraid of the roads, So much that they would ask the government to take their liberties and freedoms away for exchange for security, it’s a great way of gaining control over people not only criminals. Leaving people with the same security issues as before. Solved nothing.

    As written on the famous Statue of Liberty: Benjamin Franklin: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” as published in Memoirs of the life and writings of Benjamin Franklin (1818).
    There is no guarantee that if you surrender your freedoms and liberties in exchange for security that you will gain any security at all.

    But one thing is for sure, crime can only be reasonably prevented in the ultimate concentration camp, and even there, with the tightest control, crime still exist. Crime cannot be stopped without taking all freedoms and liberties away from the public, without considering any member of public as a potential criminal. The public must be wise and be careful what they whish for, they might just get it all.

    Protecting societies freedom and liberties are as important as it’s security. Where do we draw the line? What will the word freedom be worth if people get arrested, incriminated for ridiculous reason to chase targets, budgets and political goals? Often people are subjected to laws that is not readably available to the public, not clearly interpreted, not even the traffic department can sometimes answer or make reference to some of the laws they apply.

    Giving the public information about roadblocks will enable the individual who for example: who just want to take his girlfriend out on a romantic date not to have their evening spoiled by cops shouting and flashing torches at them, talking to them like criminals as they often do.

    The public should have the right to move about, without being harassed by roadblocks, intimidated and poor policing integrity that appears to be more common than the police are willing to admit. It appears to be easier for police to control the public than to resolve the real criminal issues of South Africa. One may need to think, how much burden did you cause the public, how much burden of criminal activity did you protect the public from. But one thing is for sure, it will get a whole lot worse before it will get any better, that’s due to one reason. The police have two official priorities, 1) to look after the safety of the public, 2) to enforce government policies and interest upon the public. But the requirement is you cannot have the one without the other. The more you ask for the one, the more you have to deal with the other. But the police will be “promoted” as only looking after the public’s interest. Roadblock warning may help criminals from escaping causing police to have to do some real policing work for a change, but it will help the non-criminal public to enjoy and maintain their freedoms to move about without harassment.

    A car thief can tell his buddy to drive 1km ahead with a legal car and call him on his cell phone if he see a roadblock or cop ahead, he will then take another route, there a cell phone is a tool of defeating the ends of justice with great success even if you have a thousand roadblocks. Giving up liberties for security does not guarantee any security, so keep holding on to your liberties and freedoms.

11. sybergypsy_ct Says:
    October 27th, 2010 at 15:10

    Hmmmm….

    a little bit rambling and incoherent, slightly difficult to read.

    Two things that caught my attention in the thread: surely traffic officers are the ones who set up roadblocks leaving police officers free to pursue actual crime? That is, if I remember correctly from having left SA many years ago. So surely there would not be an alleged lack of manpower fighting crime by attention being focused on roadblocks…. the problem with rampant crime can not be laid squarely on the shoulders of roadblocks…. imo. fwiw.

    Secondly, there seems to be a bit of confusion or contradiction in your post…. you want for there not to be roadblocks, or you agree that there should be forewarning to the effect, yet you are concerned that due to forewarning, a potential car thief can escape, which then mitigates the crime situation. A bit of a vicious cycle going on there, eh?

    Just my two pence worth.

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