Press Releases

SARF: Press statement
The South African Road Federation (SARF) expresses its concern at the poor condition of the country’s provincial and municipal road network.

Good roads are essential for the development of any country. USA President John Kennedy quoting his Commissioner of Roads made the following statement famous “it was not our wealth that enabled our good roads, but our good roads which enabled our wealth.”

The lack of adequate maintenance and the non implementation of planning is leading to a situation not dissimilar to the current energy crisis involving Eskom, where our road infrastructure is rapidly failing to meet the demand. Road traffic safety is also being compromised by potholes, rutted and slippery surfaces and a lack of general road and roadside maintenance, which often results in inadequate drainage. The SARF expresses its disappointment that lack of maintenance has lead to the rapidly deteriorating condition of the country’s provincial and municipal road networks. Whilst there might be a few exceptions in certain provinces, in general, the rural and municipal road network is failing, both in condition and its ability to cope with increased demand. In short, the overall condition of our network, excluding national roads, is a long way below professionally recognised acceptable standards.

This fact is recognised by the Minister of Transport, Mr. Jeff Radebe, who in addressing the Southern African Transport Conference in Pretoria in 2007 said that our road networks were “bursting at the seams”.

Road engineers worldwide carry out condition surveys on their country’s road networks, rating roads on a 5-point scale from very good to very poor. It is generally accepted that not more than 10% of the network should fall into the “poor” and “very poor” categories. These surveys are generally carried out annually in most countries. In South Africa the last comprehensive survey of our overall provincial network was carried out 8 years ago. At that time the figure for roads falling into the “poor and very poor category” ranged from 8% in the Western Cape, the only province to meet generally recognised acceptable standards, to 62% for the worst province. If it is accepted that any road section with a rating of “fair”, “poor” or “very poor” is unsatisfactory, 92% of a particular province’s roads were unsatisfactory. This was 8 yeas ago – and conditions have most definitely not improved since then.

The consequences of this situation are an estimated additional R20 billion per year in excess road user costs (fuel consumption, tyre wear, vehicle maintenance) due to unsatisfactory road conditions alone, and up to 10 times more in congestion costs i.e. the country’s road users are losing over R200 billion per year which they would not have to do if the roads were in a good condition.

One of the manifestations of the poor condition of our roads is the growing incidence of potholes which cause damage to vehicles and are a threat to road safety. Worldwide a “rule of thumb: for measuring the competence of road authorities is the time taken to repair potholes. Forty eight hours is an acceptable norm for rural roads, and 12 hours for freeways and motorways. In South Africa, as users will attest, potholes often are not attended to for up to 6 months or longer. An excuse often given is the “rainy season” when the incidence of potholes accelerates. However all over the world rainy seasons occur and are handled appropriately by competent road authorities.