The Department of Community Safety’s annual report for 2013/14 indicates that Gauteng is the highest contributor to road accidents and fatalities in the country each year.
According to Michele Clark, DA spokesperson on Community Safety “This makes sense considering that there are approximately 3,6 million licensed vehicles in Gauteng.”
In 2013, Gauteng released an Integrated Transport Master Plan (ITMP25) as a study of the province’s 25-year needs for transport. According to this study the number of vehicles on the province’s roads during peak hour currently reaches about 2,2 million.
Further, according to the ITMP25, in the next 25 years Gauteng can expect 25 million passenger trips a day on the province’s roads.
“Despite this, during the financial year under review, the Gauteng Community Safety Department only conducted 2 772 reckless and negligent driving operations and 760 drunken driving operations. These numbers just don’t add up.
“It is impossible to effect adequate traffic safety measures over 3,6 million vehicles with relatively so few operations on behalf of the department.
“The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) is tasked with maintaining statistics on road traffic trends and accidents in South Africa. However, the entities’ annual report delivers little in the way of real statistics and the only available Road Traffic Report is from March 2011.
“We cannot move forward with integrated and effective traffic control and safety plans without knowing what we are dealing with.
“I will be writing to the RTMC to request more updated statistics for Gauteng and ensuring that the relevant departments in the province align future targets with the reality of Gauteng’s motorist population.
“The Community Safety department must agree to set more aggressive targets if we are to improve road safety in this province.”
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