Justice Project South Africa (JPSA) said recently that they had noted with sincere regret, but little surprise, the horrific 51 per cent increase in this year’s Easter road fatalities as reported by Transport Minister, Joe Maswanganyi, on Friday morning.
Howard Dembovsky, National Chairman of JPSA said this comes after announcements by the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) just before the Easter long-weekend in which it asserted that it had targeted a 50 per cent decrease in fatalities over last year’s statistics.
He continued, “Regrettably, it has once again been proven beyond any reasonable doubt that road safety is not a light switch that can be turned on and off, yet it is clear that the Department of Transport, RTMC and all road traffic law enforcement authorities continue to choose to ignore this fact and, instead of consistently and visibly enforcing moving violations all year round, continue to put on ‘shows of strength’ during holiday periods, which methodology has repeatedly proven itself to be ineffective.
“The assertion by Minister Maswanganyi that ‘South Africa is not a Police State and therefore cannot deploy traffic officers everywhere’ is simply nonsensical, more especially in light of the fact that it is a worldwide phenomenon that road users will behave as badly as the authorities allow them to behave and each time a road user ‘gets away’ with disobeying the rules of the road and other provisions of traffic law, the habitual nature of this negative behaviour is strengthened.”
“Until such time as road traffic law enforcement becomes about road safety and not generating revenue, nothing can reasonably be expected to change, and denying accused persons police bail is not the answer. Proper, effective prosecution and consequences upon conviction is. Furthermore, such convictions should not take years to achieve, since justice needs to be swift and to be seen to be done in order to begin to address the situation and have the effect of acting as an effective deterrent to other would-be offenders.”
Maswanganyi released the following statistics in his statement:
• The total number of registered vehicles on the 31st of March 2017 stood at 12 047 404 compared to 11 818 124 in the same period in 2016. The number of registered drivers had increase by 507 002, presenting a new total of 12 283 777.
• A total of 174 253 vehicles were stopped and checked with the intention to remove unroadworthy vehicles from our roads in all provinces.
• The human factor still remains a causal factor for most of the crashes during this Easter period.
• Fifty per cent of the people who died on the roads this Easter were passengers; 24,5 per cent were pedestrians; 19,8 per cent were drivers, and 5,7 per cent were cyclists.
• The vehicle types that made the highest contribution to fatal crashes were motorcars and LDVs, with contributions of 49 and 20 per cent respectively. Minibus type vehicles contributed 7,6 per cent to the figures, while buses only contributed 1,1 per cent. This indicates that most of the passengers who died were travelling in motorcars.
• Most fatal crashes happened at night, especially between 6pm and the early hours of the morning. About 34 per cent of the daily crashes happened between 6pm to 10pm. However, other peaks were recorded between 1am and 2am, 6am and 8am and 11am and 12 noon.
• Last year, the total number of fatalities amounted to 156. This year, this number increased by 79 (i.e. 51 per cent) to 235. However, this year’s fatalities are still significantly lower than the 333 recorded in 2015.
• Most crashes and fatalities happened in residential areas and remote areas, very interestingly between 11pm and 5am the following morning.
• Gauteng saw an increase of 14 fatalities (58 per cent) – from 24 to 38.
• The number of motorists charged with various offences including failing to wear seat belts; use of cellphones while driving; speeding, and overloading increased to 61 340. More than 2 800 motorists were arrested for drunken driving’ inconsiderate, reckless and negligent driving; possession of false documents, and driving without licences or public driver’s permits.
• Seven motorists were detained for driving at speeds above 160km/hour in a 120km zone. These included a motorist who was arrested on the N6 at Reddersburg in the Free State, while driving at 227km/hour. Another was caught driving at 225km/ hour on the N1 in Pretoria.
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