No law can save us if we refuse to care

By Mothusi Shupinyane , Mo Media Chairman

The deaths of children in the Vanderbijlpark taxi crash are not just statistics. They are names that will no longer be called in the morning. School uniforms that will never be worn again. Beds that will remain empty. Parents who must now learn how to breathe in a world that no longer makes sense. We mourn them not as strangers but as a society wounded by its own behaviour.

If preliminary reports are confirmed, then we must be honest enough to say this was not an accident. An allegedly intoxicated driver, an overloaded taxi, reckless overtaking in the face of oncoming traffic – these are not acts of fate. They are choices. And choices carry consequences, often borne by the innocent. South Africa does not lack laws to prevent such tragedies. We lack the collective discipline and moral courage to respect them.

It is easy, in moments like these, to direct all anger at the government or the governing party. The ANC has a duty to legislate, to build institutions, and to create an environment where life is protected, and it has played that role over time. But no political organisation can replace personal responsibility. No law can sit behind the steering wheel. No policy can smell alcohol on a driver’s breath. No state can stop a parent from placing a child into a vehicle that is visibly unsafe. Those moments belong to us as individuals.

We must confront uncomfortable truths. Overloading is visible. Drunkenness is often detectable. Silence, in those moments, becomes participation. Convenience becomes complicity. We may not intend harm, but when we ignore danger, we quietly accept the risk that someone else’s child may not come home.

The culture of lawlessness on our roads survives because it has been normalised. Taxi drivers speed and overload because they expect no consequences. Traffic officials accept bribes because corruption has been domesticated. In that exchange, human life becomes a currency, traded cheaply and often without remorse.

This psychological numbness, the ability to move on, to excuse, to justify, is perhaps our greatest danger. It shows up not only on the roads, but in hospitals where patients are treated with indifference, in policing that lacks urgency, and in public services where dignity is optional. In the lack of enforcing immigration laws, in the criminal justice that seems to favour the criminal. The message is the same, endure, adapt, survive, but do not expect care. We blame politics because it is easier than confronting ourselves.

A better South Africa will not be built by laws alone, nor by elections alone. It will be built when accountability becomes personal again. When parents refuse unsafe transport. When drivers choose restraint over profit. When officials enforce the law without fear or favour. When citizens remember that rules exist not to punish, but to preserve life.

The children who died in Vanderbijlpark were not failed by the absence of regulation. They were failed by human indifference. If their deaths do not unsettle us deeply, if they do not force us to change how we behave, then we are not just mourning tragedy, we are rehearsing the next one.