A total of 287 people were killed in road accidents over the four-day Easter break, 139 more people than in 2014.
In addition to this a total of 820 people were arrested for drunken driving and over a thousand unroadworthy vehicles were taken off the road.
This is according to the statistics released by Transport Minister Dipuo Peters.
Speeding and driving under the influence of alcohol were some of the main contributors to the number of accidents, with KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo recording the highest numbers of fatalities (55 and 44 respectively).
This sharp increase has left officials puzzled and scrambling for answers.
“This is disheartening, it’s discouraging and shows that South Africans don’t want to live,” said Peters.
The Minister admits there’s a crisis with the quality of driving on the roads.
She noted that most crashes happened during the early hours of the morning when law enforcement officers were no longer on patrol.
“We need more men and women and it will mean we need three times the size of personnel that we have at present and we need a budget.
“If you don’t practice driving, you lose the skill.
“It’s important that we test motorists when they renew their licences so we can be sure that they are still able to drive,” she concluded.
