Road fatalities: ‘Not many accidents happen on pothole-ridden roads in SA,’ says minister

Minister of Transport Sindisiwe Chikunga says although potholes are an issue on South African roads, they cannot be linked to the high road fatality rate in the country.

Chikunga addressed a media breakfast dialogue on road safety in South Africa on Wednesday.

According to Chikunga, more than 85% of global road injuries and deaths occur in low and middle-income countries.

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Although Africa is the least motorised continent, with 2% of the world’s vehicle population here, it contributes 16% of the reported global road fatalities.

In South Africa, road fatalities saw an increase after 1994 when more people could be able to buy vehicles.

“The number of road traffic casualties has escalated since the dawn of democracy, attributed to the increase of the vehicle population,” said Chikunga.

“Between 1903 and 2014, we recorded 459,095 road crashes, resulting in 545,601 road fatalities.”

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In 1994, there were about 5.5 million vehicles in South Africa, which increased to 12.96 million in 2022.

“Such an increase has presented many road safety-related challenges,” she said.

Road fatalities: government initiatives

The government has implemented several initiatives aimed at countering the rising number of road fatalities. These include rooting out corruption in licensing departments to ensure only qualified drivers are on the roads.

“We introduced multilingual touch screen audio-visual computerised learner driver’s licence test system to minimise corruption at the first stage of the licensing process and making the system more accessible,” she said.

To address the lack of proper preparation for traffic officers, the government introduced a three-year traffic officer’s curriculum at NQF level six, which is the equivalent of a national diploma.

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“We witnessed the pass-out parade of 409 young people joining the national traffic management fraternity to further improve the safety of lives on our roads.”

The government is also in the process of having traffic management services declared an essential service to be available 24/7.

“We are getting some problems with the unions but we must go ahead and ensure it happens,” said Chikunga.

The pothole question

Although Chikunga acknowledged South Africa’s pothole problem and the need to urgently address it, she, however, said most road fatalities could be attributed to road user behaviour.

“The problem of potholes is here with us, but when you relate it to accidents, it is not many accidents that happen on those bad roads in South Africa,” said Chikunga.

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“The top 20 hazardous roads in South Africa are national roads – the N1, N3, R61, Moloto Road.

“If you look at those roads, they are in a good state of life. They are the best roads that we have in South Africa and probably on the continent and compare well with roads that we have at the world level.”

“As a government, we have been doing our part by implementing the necessary improvements that must augment our efforts to save lives and have collective work towards ensuring that citizens also take place.”

Hotspots

The government is also working to intelligently deploy law enforcement to conduct safety education campaigns at identified hotspots and where crashes are likely to happen.

“In South Africa, it is easy to know where accidents are likely to happen. You just see houses on one side of the road and a tavern on the other side of the road, then you know it is a hotspot for accidents,” she said.

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“Employed youth are the ones who carry the heavy burden of crashes, injuries and fatalities in our country. Most of them come from tertiary institutions.

“Road user behaviour is central to making our roads safer.”

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