‘These kids have nothing to help them’ – Michelle Yeoh sees impact of road crashes in South Africa

Make Roads Safe campaign ambassador, the film star Michelle Yeoh, has met road crash victims, their families, community groups and politicians on a fact finding visit to South Africa.

Michelle Yeoh joins children on their dangerous walk to school.

The Broadlands Park neighbourhood outside Cape Town.

Michelle Yeoh and WHO Africa Injury advisor Dr Olive Kobusingye inspect crashed cars.

Jeremy Cronin MP, chairman of South Africa's Parliamentary transport committee.

South Africa has a very serious road safety problem and Michelle Yeoh was visiting the country to highlight the crisis while filming a documentary for the Make Roads Safe campaign. According to the latest statistics 14,000 people were killed on the roads in 2007 and there were more than 150,000 serious injuries. In a country with more than its fair share of violence, road crashes are the leading cause of injury.

Children are hit particularly hard, as are pedestrians who account for almost half of all the road deaths in South Africa. A child in South Africa is 26 times more likely to die on the roads than a child in the European Union. On a visit to the Broadlands Park neighbourhood just outside Cape Town Michelle Yeoh saw first hand how those living in poverty suffer as a result of road crashes.

During the visit, she joined a group of children on their way to school in Broadlands Park. She said: "This is a community where these children’s homes and schools are on the other side of the road. Cars are not stopping and they are not even slowing down. These kids have nothing to help them, nothing to keep them safe when crossing these heavy junctions.”

Michelle Yeoh also met a group of families in Broadlands Park who are trying to establish basic road safety measures – such as pedestrian crossings - for the community. Sharon Simons, one of the local community leaders, told Michelle: “Politicians need to come more into these poorer communities and see these are the main places where accidents happen.”

“Their voices need to be heard because they are trying to protect their children,” Michelle Yeoh said during her visit to the township. “They are fighting for very basic human rights. They have to put in pavements and pedestrian crossings and ramps that should have been there. If these had gone in right at the beginning when they are planning the roads it would have been much better. But we need these safety measures now.”

Michelle then met six year old Enrico and his mother Mandy Smiff at the Christian Barnard Memorial Hospital in Cape Town. Enrico was hit by a car at the age of three and is still recovering from his injuries.

Mandy Smiff said: “Enrico was hit by a drunk driver. It was very difficult for us, but really he is very brave and has done well since the accident. We need to improve the safety of our roads for our children – many are not so lucky as my son.”

In a meeting at South Africa’s Parliament together with Dr. Olive Kobusingye, Injury Adviser at the WHO Regional Office for Africa, Michelle met Jeremy Cronin MP, the Chair of the Parliamentary Transport Committee. He gave full support to the Make Roads Safe campaign.

“The Make Roads Safe campaign is very critical to what we need to do in this country. We are not going to succeed in sustaining development and overcoming the huge inequalities in our society unless we address these infrastructural realities that perpetuate and reproduce the lack of safety and lack of security that poor people encounter on a daily basis. It is not just a traffic matter, it is a human rights issue and it's a developmental issue that goes right to the heart of many of the developmental challenges that we've got here in South Africa,” said Mr Cronin.

Road safety experts are concerned that the high rate of road death and injury in South Africa, which has the most developed economy in Sub Saharan Africa with relatively high motorisation but also huge social inequalities, could provide a glimpse of the future road injury epidemic in other African countries as numbers of vehicles increase, unless urgent action is taken to address poor infrastructure safety, enforcement regimes and driver training.

Michelle Yeoh’s visit to South Africa is featured in our new film, ‘Making Roads Safe: the case for road infrastructure safety’.

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