Mbalula’s stance on drunk driving: ‘Not even cough mixture’

Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula said yesterday a zero-tolerance approach to drunk driving by setting the legal blood-alcohol limit for drivers at 0% would help remove drunk drivers from the roads.

“We believe that when you get behind the wheel you must be 0.0% sober. Debates have arisen about people who have taken cough mixtures, but what is a person who has drunk a cough mixture doing behind the wheel,” Mbalula said.

“There have been a lot of arguments about this and all of this will be tested scientifically.”

His comments came after more than 235 people died on the country’s roads in 189 accidents this Easter weekend, with 438 motorists arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol.

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Releasing the 2021 Easter road safety statistics at the N1 South Grasmere toll plaza, Mbalula said the difference in numbers from the 2020 Easter weekend showed an increase, with a total of 26 fatal crashes which resulted in 28 fatalities last year.

According to the minister, statistics showed a reduction of 9.6% in the 260 fatalities recorded over the 2019 Easter long weekend and 2.1% reduction from the 193 crashes in general.

Passenger fatalities declined from 38% to 34% and there were no major crashes involving five or more deaths in a single incident.

Deaths among motor vehicle drivers and cyclists remained unchanged at about 30% and 1% respectively.

“These results reflect the success of our relentless and tireless campaign of 365 days, wherein we have made road safety a constant project and not a once-off exercise targeted only for peak periods.”

“The decline in both crashes and fatalities recorded is an indication that we are making progress towards achieving the 2030 global target of halving road fatalities,” said Mbalula.

The minister expressed his concern over pedestrian fatalities that increased from 30% to 35% compared to 2019.

“We have observed that about 6% of pedestrian fatal crashes occurred between midnight and 2am, when people were moving around in violation of the Covid-19 curfew,” the minister said.

“Preliminary figures show there was an increase in traffic volumes along major roads leading out of Gauteng and back. The N1 north to Limpopo, the N3 towards KwaZulu-Natal and the N4 towards Mpumalanga were particularly busy.

“This was despite the Easter weekend not overlapping with school holidays and religious pilgrimages to major churches that attract masses of people, due to Covid-19 restrictions,” Mbalula added.

The Southern African Bitumen Association reported that since 2017-18, the condition of many provincial roads and gravel roads had worsened and about half of SA’s gravel roads were in a poor or very poor condition.

reitumetsem@citizen.co.za