
From the 1 December 2015 until now, more than 1000 individuals have lost their lives due to holiday road accidents in South Africa.
While the exact number of fatalities has not yet been released, National Transport Minister Dipuo Peters said that the authorities are still collecting nationwide data and the information would be released in due time.
“I cannot give you the full figure right now but it’s more than a thousand of people who perished on our roads,” she said. “We are going to be collating the full information.”
In an attempt to try and reduce the high number of holiday road accidents, various safety campaigns were launched, both before and during the holiday season. Last year saw 1118 holiday road accidents, claiming over 1368 lives.
Peters stated that this year’s holiday season was marked by the substantial number of young people who were victims of holiday road accidents, particularly under the age of 20. Authorities blame speeding, drunk driving and fatigue as the main culprits for these holiday road accidents
President Jacob Zuma stated that more needs to be done to promote road safety and to get drivers to respect the rules of the road.
“Traffic authorities will not win this battle alone,” Zuma said. “All road users must cooperate to make our roads safer.”
Sunday saw traffic volumes increase along all major roads across the country, as holidaymakers return home. Most people are expected to return to work on Monday following the holiday break.
The RTMC said it would release the festive season accident statistics only at the end of January, once they had been verified – but the carnage on South African roads continued through the weekend.
Johannesburg Metro Police spokesman Wayne Minnaar said at least 46 people arrested for drunk driving and speeding were expected to appear in various courts on Monday, including 12 who were nabbed for speeding on New Year’s Day.
“The highest speedster was the driver of a BMW M4, who clocked 249km/h along the N1 highway in Midrand,” he said.
A further 11 were arrested for speeding along the Golden Highway on Sunday, he said, while at least 23 drunk drivers were nabbed on Saturday and Sunday as New Year festivities continued.
Western Cape provincial traffic chief Kenny Africa said many people were heading back from their holidays and said December had been “very problematic” in terms of road deaths in the province.
“Most were as a result of human behaviour and people taking chances such as overtaking in the face of oncoming traffic,” he said. “Many of the accidents were head-on-collisions and could have been prevented if people stayed on their side of road.”
He added that alcohol also played a role in the crashes on the province’s roads.
“Luckily we had many road blocks that were focused on drunk driving and we took drunk drivers off the roads and they were arrested.
Alcohol was a problem but not such a big problem. The big problem we had was human behavior.”
Five people died over the New Year’s weekend in the Western Cape.
Provincial department of transport and public works spokesman Byron la Hoe said on Monday: “Three drivers, one pedestrian, and a cyclist died over the weekend on Western Cape roads."
Provincial traffic services also spent the weekend conducting "alcohol blitzes" checking 2854 vehicles at 20 roadblocks across the province.
“Alcohol breath-testing was carried out on 1135 drivers and 30 were arrested,” said La Hoe.
The highest reading was recorded in Somerset West, four times the legal limit. 3317 vehicles were screened for speeding, with 410 speeding offences recorded.
The KwaZulu-Natal department of transport is cautiously optimistic that the death rate for this year’s festive season on the road has declined.
In the figures released on Sunday, the death toll had been recorded at a little more than 200, although that still had to be verified by police and the Road Traffic Management Corporation.
Zinhle Mngomezulu of the Road Traffic Inspectorate said: “Our systems are still updating, but the death toll so far is lower than last year and we have also recorded a reduction of 13 percent in road crashes.”
Source: IOL