All mouth and no trousers?

Big words from the Western Cape Transport MEC Robin Carlisle this week on two new plans to improve road safety in the Province. Firstly, he outlined plans to institute huge fines for parents who do not belt their children in when they are in the car. And those driving on the roads of Cape Town will note that this is a very common issue. Very common.

Currently, SA law only made provision for fines of about R200 for failing to use seatbelts, Carlisle said – and children were not differentiated from adults.
He said the provincial government wanted this increased to between R4 000 and R6 000 per child, which was in line with countries such as Britain, the US and Australia.

This is, without doubt, a good idea.
The statistics stated within that report are horrendous and include (but are not limited to):

  • 85% of parents do not strap their children in.
  • Road accidents remain the top non-natural killer of children in the country.
  • Between 200 and 300 children treated for trauma at the Red Cross hospital every year, between 70 and 90 percent had been injured in car crashes.
  • About 8 000 children die each year on the roads.
  • About 89 percent of those taken to the hospital for treatment had not been wearing seatbelts at the time of the crashes.

So of course, I’m fully in support of any steps taken to reduced these injuries and fatalities. Who wouldn’t be? Reinforcing the laws around kids and seatbelts is a good idea and upping the fines for those who don’t comply is a no-brainer.

The trouble is that it’s illegal to talk on one’s cellphone while driving, to speed and, in fact, to not wear a seatbelt yourself. It’s illegal to drive while under the influence of alcohol. But people still do it. And they do it because they can – and do – get away with it.
Remember this?

The spokesman for Cape Town Traffic Services, Kevin Jacobs, said 4 184 drivers in six months had been fined for the unlawful use of a cellphone while driving.

From which I calculated this?

4,200 in 6 months. That’s 700 a month. Or 24 a day. 1 an hour.
In a city with 3,000,000+ inhabitants. It’s a drop in the ocean.

So the laws are there, but the fact that they’re just not enforced means that the driving public feel that they don’t have to obey them. As Mrs El Presidenté said of the “Buckle up your kids, or pay” article, on Facebook:

Nice idea, but exactly how are they going to police it?

And I agree: this is pretty much worthless without backup. However, I’m also aware that the first step is to at least have decent laws to enforce. At the moment, we don’t even really have that. So this is a move in the right direction.

But perhaps a better way of making the roads a safer place to be is to change driver attitude and raise awareness of the effects of poor or illegal driving practices. And Robin Carlisle has made plans here too, with the new Crash Witness website, featuring genuine CCTV footage of accidents on the Province’s highways.

Described as:

Not for sensitive viewers /Ayilungiselelwanga abaButhathaba / Nie vie sensitiewe kyker nie

it is obviously designed to encourage drivers into thinking before they engage in dangerous driving. When I visited the site yesterday and again this morning, the videos refused to play – which merely served to encourage a lot of frustration here Chez 6000. I had to have a couple a Red Bulls to calm myself down before hitting the M3 into town.

I very much doubt that it will be possible to measure the results that Crash Witness may/will have in the Western Cape. I presume that beneficial effects from this type of thing have been shown elsewhere. But again – anything which improves the safety of our roads has got to be a step in the right direction.

What do you think? Do you buckle your kids up when you are driving? If not, why not?
Do you use your cellphone at the wheel? If so, why? What would make you stop?

Your Parenting Weekend: Sorted

I know that much has been said about the Green Point Urban Park childrens’ play areas by other notable Cape Town blogs, but we hadn’t actually test driven it with the kids until yesterday. Suffice to say that we’ll be going back.

If you’re a parent of young kids and you haven’t been there yet, you’re missing out. We were there between 5:30 and 7pm yesterday evening (it’s open 7am to 7pm) and had to physically tear the kids away from the place. And while there were families around, it was serene and peaceful there yesterday (aside from Alex splitting his toe open and the associated noise), I can only begin to imagine how packed it is going to be during the upcoming holidays *shudder*.

 

Something else which is going to be busy and fun is the Newlands VWS Open Day on Saturday. Now look, I’m telling you about this because it was an amazing experience for my boy last year, but I don’t want you all to turn up, otherwise it’ll just be rubbish. Apart from all the usual fire engines, helicopters and big hoses (careful now), there are snake shows, stall and competitions:

09:00: Gates open
10:15: Snake show
11:00: Firefighting display and chopper drop
13:15: Snake show (repeat)
14:00: Best-dressed firefighter competition
14:00: Firefighting display and chopper drop (repeat)
16:00: Gates close

I can highly recommend it.

 

And then to complete your parenting weekend plans, how about a visit to the magnificent Cape Town Stadium for the Ajax Cape Town vs Bloemfontein Celtic match on Sunday? Gates open at 1pm and kick off is at 3:30pm.

Ajax are once again making this one of their Family Fun Days, with jumping castles, fussball, face-painting and entertainment for everyone. I want you all to turn up (this includes the Ajax strikers), otherwise it’ll just be rubbish.

Add these events to the School PTA Fun Day and a braai from 3pm on Saturday and I’ll be glad to get back to work on Monday for a nice break. (Just kidding boss! hehehehe.)

*cough*

New Apparatjik album in February

Incoming from the boys of Apparatjik (previously seen here on 6000 miles…) – their new album Square Peg In A Round Hole is due to be released on the 21st February 2012. Which is as good a reason as any to give you another taste of their first album – this is the melancholic desperation of Electric Eye:

In a nod to their music/art fusion, the band have pre-released certain parts of the album for fans to “premix” before the official launch next year:

More bassification.
Newer songings?
More Magne A vocalings?
Synthesizer soloings by Jonas A?
Bedtime story by Martin A?
Falsetto tunings by Guy A?
You want to re-mix? apparatjik lets you premix

But you need to have an iPad to be able to partake and I don’t have one of them.

What a good idea

I’d like to say that I didn’t blog yesterday in some sort of protest against the passing of the first stages of the Protection of Information Bill in Parliament, but it was actually something far more immediate than that – I didn’t have any time or any inclination. I’ve said before than when these conditions meet in a perfect storm of business and “meh”, it’s best not to fight the system. And in using that term, I’m continuing to avoid passing comment on the POIB.

Many individuals think that the POIB is a bad idea. And, if you believe what you read in the (entirely objective) media, you would certainly think the same. But the grading of gooditude or baddity for ideas is all relative. Even the heinous POIB pales into insignificance next to this idea:

Shark Attack Experiment: LIVE will beam from some of the world’s most shark-infested waters off the coast of South Africa. Here, a team of free-divers and conservationists put their safety on the line to separate shark attack myths from realities. Also, on location will be shark attack victims to tell their stories and enter the water for the first time since their traumatic encounters. This is no stunt; the goal is to dispel negative myths about sharks and raise public awareness that some shark species are being driven to extinction by overfishing.Shark Attack Experiment: LIVE caps Nat Geo WILD’s “Sharkathon”—nine hours of blue chip shark programs shot in locations around the world.

Yep. You read it right. It’s like shark cage diving. But without the cage. It’s driving with no seatbelt on. The wrong way down the N1. With your eyes closed.

the goal is to dispel negative myths about sharks

Jawellnofine. But it’s not the negative myths that bother me so much. It’s more the negative realities about sharks. The bit where they eat people or eat bits of people. Om nom nom.

Another interesting part of this experiment will be the bit when they see if sharks are more attracted to bare skin than to neoprene, by sending a lass in a bikini down into shark infested waters and – presumably – seeing how much of her resurfaces.  Quite what their grading criteria on this particular part of the investigation will be remains unclear to me, as ideally, to get a meaningful result either bikini girl or wetsuit boy will have to be eaten.

Ah! So he only took a leg off the guy in the wetsuit, but he’s left nothing of the chick in the two piece. So that’s a preliminary yes – sharks prefer bare skin. Right. Load up the next victim… er… I mean “experimental subject” – and let’s try smearing her with strawberry jam this time.

I won’t be watching this weekend – I’m not going to be near a TV. But I am looking forward to next week’s LIVE experiment where Nat Geo gathers a bunch of experts and attempts to dispel the negative myths about gravity by jumping from a very tall thing, with no parachute.

Best album of the year?

The 6000 miles… Best Album of the Year 2011 voting is in full swing. I say “voting” because that makes it sound vaguely democratic and democracy is good, mmmkay? In actual fact, I’m using the term “democratic” in the full Zimbabwean tradition – basically, what I say, goes, and if you wish to disagree, I’ll beat you with some sticks in the bush of Matabeleland.

And there are some strong contenders this year. The Streets’ Computers and Blues, Arctic Monkeys’ Suck It And See and now Kasabian’s Velociraptor!, from which this track Days Are Forgotten is taken:

 

I have gone on record (somewhere that I can’t find) here [Thanks Joe] as saying that the first five songs on Velociraptor!:

  1. Let’s Roll Just Like We Used To
  2. Days Are Forgotten
  3. Goodbye Kiss
  4. La Fée Verte
  5. Velociraptor!

are the best opening side (for those who can remember records and cassettes) to any album I can remember since October 1986: that month marked by the release of a-ha’s second album, Scoundrel Days, which had this line up on Side A:

  1. Scoundrel Days
  2. The Swing Of Things
  3. I’ve Been Losing You
  4. October
  5. Manhattan Skyline

See also, The Killers’ Day & Age, which came close, but which was let down  by the rather weak Joyride.

These tracks just work together. And they’re good. Sometimes with an album you want to skip a track or two, but not here. Musically, the combination of fast and slow, loud and soft (from tracks 3 to 4 on Scoundrel Days and the other way from 4 to 5 on Velociraptor!) is there in both cases. More on Kasabian’s Muse meets Beatles style when they pop out some more videos.

In the meantime, why not (carefully) stick down your thoughts on other contenders for this illustrious award in the comments below? Or maybe your thoughts on the best first five songs on any album. You may want to remember my Mugabesque approach to dissension, as described above.