NICRO, Arrive Alive and the South African Breweries (SAB) have joined forces to reduce drunk driving and keep South Africans safe on the road this festive season with the Road Offence Panel Programme (ROPP).
This campaign will run until the end of January 2015 and will be ongoing at interim periods throughout the year, aiming at heightening awareness of road safety and holding offenders accountable for their behaviour.
With South African Police Services figures showing that some 195 people are arrested daily driving under the influence (DUI), and that 71,065 DUI arrests were made in 2012, drunk driving is one of the greatest threats to road safety in the country.
"At least 50% of people who die on the roads have a blood alcohol concentration above the legal limit. As a result, the ROPP was piloted in 2010 to address the challenge of growing numbers of offenders arrested and entering the criminal justice system for DUI," said NICRO CEO, Soraya Solomon.
ROPP is aimed at tackling the challenge of drunk driving through a behavioural programme and has seen tangible results. Over the coming year, NICRO aims to implement ROPP in the Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and the Northern Cape,
"As the country's biggest brewery, SAB is pleased to play a role in helping to keep South Africans safe on the road while at the same time reducing the workload burden on the formal criminal justice system," said SAB Corporate Affairs manager for the Cape Region, Sanele Gaqa.
NICRO believes the programme is a more effective long-term solution than sentencing someone to imprisonment for drunk driving as prison is not necessarily the best option for all DUI offenders. However, it is up to the discretion of a magistrate to decide whether to impose the course as opposed to a jail sentence or a fine. The course can also be imposed in combination with other interventions, which then strengthen the long term behavioural change results.
