Time to change the way we do things about our roads
If you want to change an end result, you need to change the way you do things. PHOTO | FOTOSEARCH
What you need to know:
- May I suggest that the absolute start point is to recognise that what we have always done hasn’t worked and won’t work; and to acknowledge that we need to thoroughly review and completely redesign the strategy.
- Profoundly and fundamentally “change” the way we do things. Consider ideas that are not just “a bit different”, but those which are almost the opposite of what has gone before.
- Instead of “threat” tactics, consider “supportive” measures. Instead of assuming “speeding” vehicles are the problem, look at the dangers and disruption of “super slow” vehicles.
"If you keep on doing what you have always done, you will keep on getting what you have always got.”
This famous saying has been attributed to many great thinkers and doers, ranging from physicist Albert Einstein to industrialist Henry Ford.
No matter who first or subsequently said it, the meaning is consistent: If you want to change an end result, you need to change the way you do things.
Perhaps it is an idea worth contemplating in the light of recent news that Kenya’s road death toll is once again rising, and that policy is once again determined to reverse the trend.
This is not the first time we have heard that statistic … and that response. Exactly, but exactly the same refrain has been voiced at least 50 times before — with the same-old pledges to “redouble” road safety efforts, launch crackdowns, add more laws, increase fines, widen the power (but not the skills, resources or integrity) of law enforcers …
Sometimes, this strategy has led to a temporary improvement but it has never, ever, sustained the trend or had the necessary transformative effect.
This column has often analysed why the “threat” strategy is the reflex — with no little sympathy for inadequately resourced administrators tasked with making a burgeoning and recalcitrant system work better, and for the innocent and law-abiding motorists who suffer the collateral damage of “redoubled” enforcement of the same-old knee-jerk policies and practices.
CHANGE
So this time, are we going to keep on doing what we have always done (with the near certainty that we will get the result we have always got) or are we finally going to “change the way we do things”? And what is the first step in that direction?
May I suggest that the absolute start point is to recognise that what we have always done hasn’t worked and won’t work; and to acknowledge that we need to thoroughly review and completely redesign the strategy.
Profoundly and fundamentally “change” the way we do things. Consider ideas that are not just “a bit different”, but those which are almost the opposite of what has gone before.
Instead of “threat” tactics, consider “supportive” measures. Instead of assuming “speeding” vehicles are the problem, look at the dangers and disruption of “super slow” vehicles.
Instead of blaming and punishing “vehicle defects”, establish the causes of those defects and help enable motorists to understand, avoid and fix them.
Instead of focusing on the behaviour and punishment and restriction of motorists, focus on improving the environment they operate in by calling to account those who design and maintain it.
Instead of criticising the competence of drivers, upgrade the skills, discipline and syllabus of those who teach and test them. And so on.
