46 per cent decline in road deaths
JOBURG – The minister of Transport has announced a 46 per cent drop in road fatalities over the 2016 Easter period.
Minister of Transport Dipuo Peters has announced a 46 per cent decline in road deaths over the 2016 Easter period from 24 until 28 March.
The Minister announced at a live briefing session that last year saw 207 fatalities on the roads as compared to the 156 fatalities this year.
She also announced that the there were 913 drivers arrested for driving under the influence and that the highest speeding incident recorded over the long weekend was 227 km/h while a total of 502 drivers were arrested for speeding. Peters also noted that there were two traffic officers who lost their lives on the road during this period due to reckless and negligent driving
“The Easter travel patterns are generally influenced by high traffic movement to places of worship, with Moria in Limpopo being the key place for pilgrimage church goers, “she said.
She pointed out that this year there were a few peculiarities that impacted the number of deaths on the road such as the coincidence of the school holidays with the Easter weekend, Two Oceans Marathon and the Klein Karoo Festival.
“There were many planned religious, cultural and mass sport events which encouraged travelling this year and thus we heightened our Easter interventions from the 11 March and began with safety activation focussing on promoting vehicle road worthiness among public transport vehicles,” Peters said.
She added that when Easter period arrived they were more prepared and extra resilient. “We had held prayer sessions, mobilised the community and our traffic law
enforcement fraternity were ready and prepared. The instruction to the law enforcement officers was simple, loud and very clear, zero tolerance and no mercy for traffic violations on the road,” she added. She pointed out that they were perturbed to notice a new phenomenon and disturbing tendency where some motorists drove vehicles without registration numbers. “This is a deliberate ploy to avoid detection for traffic violations and to undermine our law enforcement efforts. Our instruction to law enforcement officers is that those individuals found perpetrating this particular offence should not be allowed to get away with a traffic fine only. The vehicle must be impounded and the owner forced to make alternative transport arrangements,” she added.
Peters said that the sharp decline in road deaths was achieved despite a three per cent increase in the number of registered vehicles using the road across the country.
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