Johannesburg – At least 1 451 died on South Africa’s roads during the festive season with most of the fatal crashes involving light motor vehicles, followed by light delivery vehicles, minibusses, and trucks.
Releasing the 2022 Festive Season fatality statistics on Tuesday at the Grasmere Toll Plaza, Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula said: “This year’s Festive Season was characterized by a sequence of long weekends which contributed to increased traffic on the roads”.
Mbalula added: “Human factors remain a principal driver of fatalities on our roads, accounting for 87% of all crashes.
“These are followed by road and environmental factors at 8%, with vehicle factors at 5%”.
The transport minister made mention of the Boksburg tanker blast that has killed 40 people so far, as he revealed that during the period under review 1 451 people lost their lives on our roads.
“This is a 13.9% reduction compared to 1 685 fatalities in the previous period,” Mbalula said while noting that the number of fatalities, that included pedestrians, was still unacceptably high.
The minister said speeding, driving under the influence, and fake licence discs were among the most recorded offences during the festive season.
Unlicensed vehicle offences stood at 25 244.
Minister Mbalula said, “a significant number of vehicles on our roads are unlicensed with others driving with fraudulent license discs”.
He added: “We have to decisively deal with the rampant corruption prevalent in our Driving Licence Testing Centres (DLTCs).
“This corruption translated to a revenue loss for the Gauteng government of R1.2 billion in the last financial year”.
Speeding infringements remain high on the offence list, with as many as 32 110 drivers caught driving above the speed limit.
On 22 December 2022, a VW Golf 7 driver was arrested travelling at 238km/h on the N1 in Wierdabrug.
There were 947 drunken driving cases opened during the period under review.
On 3 January 2023, a male driver was arrested with breath alcohol levels of 3.99 milligram per thousand millilitres (3.99mg/1000ml). This is 16.6 times above the limit.
Mbalula also lauded law enforcers for their efforts to minimise road carnage that included the use of helicopters to monitor traffic.
“I would like to express an appreciation to Road Safety and Law Enforcement personnel and organizations for their role in educational and awareness activations in the build-up and during the Festive Season,” said the minister.
“We thank all roads authorities, Provincial and local government personnel, who continue to drive road safety awareness interventions aimed at cultivating better conduct on our roads.
“We equally extend our gratitude to the private sector organizations, which include Santam, Sanlam, MasterDrive, Fleetwatch, Distell and Diageo and Metropolitan for their commitment to road safety public awareness.”
The minister said law enforcement interventions have been critical during this festive season and “my gratitude goes to each officer, for their tireless efforts to curb road carnage on our roads”.
More than 370 joint operations were executed during the period under review, in line with the focus areas that were presented on 8 December 2022, which focused on pedestrian enforcement, vehicle roadworthiness, public passenger transport, drunken driving, execution of warrants of arrest, and speed law enforcement.
“On this note, we welcome the re-introduction and implementation of static and mobile speed camera operations within the Metros in the promotion of Road Safety,” Mbalula said.
He said as many as 474 K78 roadblocks were carried out during this period, with over 1.3 million vehicles stopped and checked.
Over 255 000 notices were issued during this period.
Commenting on the reduced fatalities on SA roads, Automobile Association (AA) said while the decrease in festive season road deaths was encouraging, “more needs to be done”.
The AA said, “the number of deaths on the country’s roads remains too high and requires urgent intervention”.
The association also took issue with the fatality numbers earlier announced by Transport Minister Mbalula, who said during the festive period, from 1 December 2022 to 11 January 2023, 1 451 people died on South African roads.
Almost a 14% reduction in the number of fatalities compared to the same period in 2021/2022.
However, the AA said there were some concerning elements about these numbers.
“Firstly, the official recorded number of fatalities by the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) over the 2021/2022 period was 1808 fatalities, not 1685,” the AA pointed out.
“This brings into question the accuracy of the numbers provided overall, an issue we have raised before.
“Secondly, the rate of 1451 fatalities is simply still too high, and cannot be regarded as a gain in terms of road safety.”
The Association said it remains concerned that traffic law enforcement is focussed on seasonal campaigns – especially around Easter and the end-of-year holiday period – instead of being equally visible throughout the year.
“Minister Mbalula today noted that ‘enforcement continues to be a critical part of road safety’ but there is little evidence that traffic law enforcement is being bolstered in any way,” the AA said.
“In 2019, the government-appointed Traffic Law Enforcement Review Committee called for a doubling of the number of traffic law enforcers but to date, there is nothing to suggest this recommendation has been implemented.”
The AA further said while the government notes that road crashes cost the economy close to R2bn annually, not enough was being done to improve the situation.
“The number of fatalities remains alarmingly high year-on-year and shows no signs of decreasing meaningfully,” said the AA.
“While we applaud the dedication of traffic law enforcers around the country, particularly during peak travel times, we believe an increase in funding and resourcing of traffic law enforcement is essential to ensure a significant drop in the number of crashes and fatalities.”
