The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) has sent 160 traffic officers back to training as it seeks to improve road safety and the quality of traffic officers who enforce the law on South Africa’s roads.
Officers began their training in Heidelberg last week as part of the RTMC’s capacity building programme to ensure the availability of suitable skills within the traffic fraternity.
The intensive four months programme has targeted practising traffic officers who seek to improve their skills. The up-skilling programme will seek to impact critical skills such as the examination of vehicles, the law, advanced driving, firearm handling and communications among others.
The examination of vehicle skills is short in supply within the traffic fraternity and the RTMC has identified it as critical in ensuring safety on the roads by eliminating un-roadworthy vehicles.
The training lays the foundation for the professionalization of the traffic police service and the introduction of the 21st century curriculum. The RTMC has developed norms and standards for the traffic fraternity and is currently working with institutions of higher education to introduce a new occupational qualification for traffic officers.
The Chief Executive Officer of the RTMC, Advocate Makhosini Msibi, describes the training as “an effort to build a new cadre of a traffic officer schooled in the highest form of ethical conduct to ensure that ours is a fraternity of integrity.”
He said traffic officers will continue to receive on-the-job training to ensure improvements in the quality of traffic officers who are deployed on South Africa’s roads.
