Small drop in number of deaths on SA roads

The five provinces contributing most to road fatalities indicates there are no accountability measures in place for bad driver behaviour, says the Automobile Association’s Layton Beard.

Minister of Transport Sindisiwe Chikunga and the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) yesterday released the provisional festive season road statistics and provided a midterm update on the country’s road safety awareness campaign.

Beard said the major problem was that people were not being held accountable for their bad behaviour by not obeying the rules of the road.

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It was no surprise that KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Limpopo, the Eastern Cape and Western Cape had contributed more than others because they had the most traffic, especially over the holiday.

“We need to make sure that people found drunk and driving are prosecuted to the full might of the law, and they need to be taken off our roads,” he said. “We need more awareness campaigns throughout the year as well.”

According to Chikunga, from 1 December, law enforcement officials had conducted 423 roadblocks nationally with 753 823 vehicles stopped and checked. A total of 173 307 infringement notices had been issued, 1 333 vehicles were discontinued, 2 619 had been impounded and 3 573 motorists had been arrested: drunken driving accounting for 1 114.

The top five infringements were speeding (40 025 notices issued), driving without fastened seatbelts (14 110), driving without a driving licence (13 077), unlicensed vehicles (15 728) and bald tyres (8 597).

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“This clearly indicates that the first half of our campaign has been marked by wanton lawlessness, intransigent attitudes and inconsiderate conduct by motorists in townships, suburbs and villages,” Chikunga said.

There had been 719 fatalities compared to 751 in the same period last year. Gauteng had recorded 187 road deaths, a 23.8% increase on last year, with the 135 in KZN representing a 6.3% decrease. Limpopo has had 88 fatalities, the same as last year, while Mpumalanga had 81, a 6.6% increase.

A total of 76 people had died in car crashes in the Western Cape, a 1.3% decrease on last year, with 59 in the Eastern Cape. Free State stood at 49 fatalities, North West at 37 and the Northern Cape at 16 – a 49.7% decrease on last year.

Beard said although the number of deaths had dropped, “the declines are very small”. Chikunga urged motorists to exercise caution and avoid driving under the influence of alcohol.