Festive Season road death toll rises by 14 percent

Transport Minister Dipuo Peters said today that fatalities on the country’s roads during this past festive season increased by 14 percent or 220 fatalities.

In 2014/15 the amount of fatalities were 1535 where it now ended in a tragic 1 755 fatalities in 2015/16. This was revealed at a media briefing in Pretoria.

Peters did, in the days before the holiday period, urged all road users to be responsible on the roads, and help reduce the carnage on our roads country wide.

This appeared not to have been taken seriously, as between December 1 and January 11 1387 fatal crashes occurred‚ representing an 11 percent increase compared to 2014’s 1 253 crashes.

Other statistics include:

• Most crashes (51,4 percent) occurred between 2pm and 11pm
• 22,2 percent of crashes were recorded on Saturdays‚ 18,8 percent on Fridays‚ while Sunday accounted for 16,9 percent
• 81,4 percent of fatalities were blacks‚while the remainder varies between coloured‚ whites‚ asians and foreigners
• 74,4 percent of the total fatalities were male‚ 25,2 percent female and the gender of 0,4 percent of people in crashes could not be determined because they were burned beyond recognition
• The majority of people who died were passengers (38,3 percent) followed by pedestrians at 34,9 percent, drivers accounted for 23,9 percent and cyclists 2,8 percent
• Small motor vehicles accounted for 47,9 percent of total crashes; light vehicles 22,7 percent, minibuses/combi’s 10,1 percent and trucks
4,8 percent.
• 10,4 percent of pedestrians deaths were children aged 0 to 4.

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