Road safety: When personal responsibility fails, policy must respond

In recent days, people have clamoured for a response to increasing road fatalities that continue to claim lives and leave families mourning.

This clamouring should not be seen solely by segments of the political elite as unwillingness by citizens to practice road safety. Rather, it should be understood for what it is: a cry for help from people who believe, appropriately so, that they are increasingly unable to protect themselves on the roads, notwithstanding their own efforts. Such calls should never be met with resistance or a recasting of blame onto the citizenry, thereby obfuscating the need for policy responses, even while personal responsibility remains important.

The central issue is that driving is inherently interdependent. One’s actions can only go so far in protecting oneself, as safety ultimately depends on the complementary actions of others. It is precisely for this reason that government intervention is required to create the conditions for reasonable safety on the roads.

Importantly, the government should also return to the people, using modern technology and e-democracy tools, to solicit concrete responses. More often than not, citizens themselves are imbued with practical solutions but remain insufficiently engaged.

Government intervention must therefore occur while public concern remains high and support for action is widespread, rather than waiting for the issue to dissipate through fatigue or oblivion. Thomas Hobbes was correct in at least one respect when he observed that individuals left entirely to their own devices may engage in destructive behavior, thereby necessitating regulation. While I reject his broader conclusions about human nature and governance, his observation nonetheless underscores the imperative of state intervention when personal responsibility alone proves insufficient.

What is required, however, is not a knee-jerk reaction, but a well-researched, nuanced, and effective one. The first port of call must be to understand, study, and research the underlying propensities associated with reckless driving, including age ranges, locations, vehicle types, and behavioral patterns, in order to determine appropriate interventions. The oft-repeated retort that safe driving is merely a matter of “common sense” is insufficient and deeply flawed as a basis for public policy. It assumes a society composed exclusively of rational actors, when in reality all polities include individuals whose behaviors deviate from rational expectations, but must still be subject to governance.

We must therefore decode reckless driving behavior in all its contradictions, setting aside our own biases about why individuals engage in such conduct. It is easy to sit online and cast a wide net of blame over young people, asserting that they simply wish to emulate race-car movies and should therefore be jailed en masse. Such responses are not only impossible but evidentially insufficient, speculative, and likely to result in a profligate use of public resources with little impact. The government must recognise that its objective is to change behavior, and this requires a behavioral lens explaining why change has not occurred.

Key questions include whether reckless driving is influenced by the physical environment, heuristics and mental shortcuts, habit and automatic behavior, moral perceptions of right and wrong, social expectations and reputational concerns, perceived costs and benefits, or by the presence or absence of credible legislative sanctions. Equally important is understanding where and when such behaviors occur, whether they are habitual or impulsive, whether drivers believe themselves to be “good” and therefore immune to harm, whether behavior is normalised because “everyone does it,” and whether it is because of weak or inconsistent enforcement.

These questions must be answered through systematic research, observational studies, behavioral experiments, surveys, focus groups, and cost-benefit analyses. Absent a clear understanding of what drives the behavior, policy intervention is unlikely.

Any discussion of policy responses must begin with the enforcement of existing laws on speeding and dangerous driving, while acknowledging that the police force cannot be everywhere at once. Despite increases in ticketing and enforcement, there remains a strong case for further application of Section 73 of the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act — death by dangerous driving.

Fines alone may be inadequate deterrents for at least two reasons: their relatively low cost to offenders and their inconsistent enforcement. Where fines are neither cost-prohibitive nor reliably enforced, they fail to incentivise behavior change. This problem is exacerbated by perceptions of corruption and selective enforcement, whereby individuals believe they can evade punishment through social connections. In such circumstances, fines become merely the cost of doing business.

Policymakers must therefore think beyond fines and prosecution and consider additional control levers, such as a demerit point system. Such a system would operate as a graduated reduction in licence privileges linked to specific offences, including speeding, mobile phone use while driving, drunk driving, multiple infractions , and ultimately a guilty verdict for death by dangerous driving. Where drivers are aware that continued violations carry a real prospect of licence suspension or revocation, behavior is more likely to change, given the significant impact on mobility for work, family, and leisure.

Careful consideration must be given to the accumulation of points within specified timeframes, the relative weighting of offences based on severity and risk, and the duration for which points remain on record. Stricter regimes should apply to new drivers, who statistically exhibit higher propensities for risky behavior. At the same time, the system must allow for rehabilitation rather than perpetual punishment. Opportunities to regain points through community service, educational programs, and targeted training should be incorporated, both to encourage reform and to mitigate disproportionate impacts on lower socio-economic groups.

Crucially, none of these measures can function in isolation. They must be complemented by infrastructural improvements such as better road lighting, clearer markings, roundabouts, and strategically placed speed-control mechanisms. Increased use of technology, including speed guns, breathalysers, and data-driven enforcement deployed at undisclosed locations, can enhance effectiveness while reducing discretion and opportunities for corruption.

Ultimately, pursuing these policies does not dilute personal responsibility but strengthens the conditions under which responsible behavior can occur.