Durban — As KwaZulu-Natal experiences high traffic volumes during the festive season – which leads to an increase in drunk driving – the KZN Road Traffic Inspectorate (RTI) has 140 blood alcohol kits for use at alcohol enforcement roadblocks for the holiday period.
This was revealed by MEC for Transport, Community Safety and Liaison Sipho Hlomuka in a written reply to the DA recently.
This was in spite of the fact that there was an increased demand for more blood alcohol kits during the festive season.
When asked whether the RTI officers were trained, Hlomuka said: “No training is required for law enforcement officers to use antemortem blood kits as these kits are used by medical practitioners to draw blood from suspects in terms of the Criminal Procedure Act, 1977 (Act 51 of 1977).”
He said all RTI officers were trained on the procedure to register a driver under the influence of alcohol.
“During this process, the RTI officers must ensure that the blood kit has not expired and is not damaged or compromised in any way.”
Hlomuka said that when it came to responding to an accident, it took approximately 15 minutes to respond to local cases and 30 minutes if the case was out of town.
In the last three years, more than 1.2 million drivers have been tested and 2 292 arrested.
“The RTI has 384 verified vehicles in KZN and they are split into four regions. Region 1 has 91 vehicles. Region 2 has the most among the regions, 120. Region 3 has 76, the fewest and region 4 has 97.
“Out of 91 vehicles in region 1, 21 are under maintenance. Out of 120 in region 2, 27 are under maintenance whilst regions 3 and 4 have 14 and 18 vehicles under maintenance from a possible 76 and 97 vehicles respectively. That is a total of 80 vehicles that are in for maintenance.”
DA KZN spokesperson on transport Sharon Hoosen said Hlomuka had promised that the department was ready for the festive season but it has been confirmed that the RTI does not have sufficient vehicles on the roads because 25% of its fleet were sitting in garages waiting for repairs and blood alcohol kits were running extremely low.
“We’ve warned the political leadership of this province against using the Department of Transport as a dumping ground for inexperienced MECs.
“The DA wishes to encourage all road users to be extra vigilant on our roads this festive season because we cannot rely on the Department of Transport to ensure that they take a zero-tolerance position on our roads during this festive season,” said Hoosen.
Last month, the Daily News’ sister publication, Post, reported that provincial law enforcement did not have enough blood alcohol kits to test drivers’ sobriety and that they were still in the process of procuring the kits. The KZN Department of Transport provided an update.
Daily News