Transport Minister Barbara Creecy has painted a grim picture of the festive season. Picture: Screengrab of live briefing.
Transport Minister Barbara Creecy has painted a grim picture of the 2024 festive season, revealing that Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Limpopo account for 70% of road fatalities in South Africa thus far.
Creecy and her deputy Mkhuleko Hlengwa provided an update on the mid-festive season preliminary road safety report on Thursday at Touws River in the Western Cape.
The briefing comes a few days after a fatal crash on the N9 between Graaff-Reinet and Middelburg in the Eastern Cape, which claimed 15 lives.
Creecy said a total of 439 fatal crashes have been recorded, which is a 3.1 % increase when compared to 426 fatal crashes recorded in the same period last year.
“These crashes have resulted in 512 people dying on the roads so far, compared to 499 last year. This is a statistically significant 2.6% increase in fatalities, and it threatens our expectations to have fewer fatalities over this season.
“The majority of those who died were pedestrians (45.6%), followed by passengers (26.8%), drivers (26.7%) and cyclists (0.74%),” Creecy said.
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Creecy said Gauteng, KwaZulu Natal, Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Limpopo accounted for 70% of all fatalities in this period.
“Gauteng has the highest number of fatalities at 19%, KwaZulu-Natal at 15%, the Western Cape at 14% and the Eastern Cape and Limpopo both at 11%.
“The Free State and Mpumalanga have seen a contribution of 10% and 9% respectively, while the North West contributed 7% and the Northern Cape at the lowest with a contribution of 4% to the total number of fatalities,” she said.
Creecy emphasised that following an evaluation meeting with all provincial MECs on Tuesday, the national transport department has agreed that it is necessary to change the approach for the remainder of the festive season.
“In the coming days, we will intensify our efforts to drastically reduce pedestrian and passenger fatalities by shifting our focus from the main arterial routes to increased policing inside suburbs, townships, and villages.
“Law enforcement operations focusing on drunken driving and the wearing of seatbelts will also be increased. We will also move the focus from roadblocks to visible patrols on all routes, including alternative or secondary routes,” Creecy said.
The minister said the department has also decided that provincial traffic departments should adopt the approach used by the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) to exercise oversight and co-ordinate with municipalities.
“This is to ensure that the traffic policing resources are adequately deployed to address all high-risk areas. It means that provincial control rooms comprising senior provincial and municipal traffic officers should be set up to monitor the implementation of the plan and for joint decision-making.
“Considering the challenges that some provinces are experiencing with the implementation of the 24/7 shift system, we have instructed provincial authorities to implement a flexi-shift system to improve traffic officer visibility at all hours of the day,” Creecy said.
Creecy reminded motorists that road safety is everyone’s responsibility and people should remain on high alert until everyone has returned from holidays and for every single day spent on the road.
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