‘Not enough is being done,’ AA says of road carnage

The AA views these numbers as a sad indictment on road traffic safety and enforcement initiatives and calls on both the government and driving public, to take serious stock of what these numbers mean.

“Last year’s preliminary figures, released shortly after the Easter period of 2016, indicated 156 deaths on our roads over the period.

“However, when the 30-day waiting period was over (which is customary when calculating final numbers) the fatalities rose to by 57 per cent to 245,” the AA notes.

• Read: Easter fatalities increase by 51% from last year

According to the statistics, 235 people died on the country’s roads between April 13 and April 17, an increase of 51 per cent on 2016.

Half of those who died in the crashes were passengers in vehicles, while pedestrians accounted for just under 25 per cent of the fatalities.

While almost all provinces recorded increases in fatalities, the Free State was the one province where roads deaths came down by 27 per cent.

“We have said it before many times and we will continue saying it, not enough is being done to stop the carnage on our roads.

“Year-in and year-out we are being given statistics that either stay marginally similar to the previous years’ figures or are increasing and while much is being said about how to turn this situation around, it appears these efforts are at best slow to materialise, at worst ineffective,” the association says.

One major issue, the association adds, was the continuing problems associated with people buying driving licences, instead of earning them and with the issuing of fraudulent roadworthy certificates for vehicles which should not be on the road.

• Also read: ER24’s advice on reacting to accidents

The AA is concerned that this has been an ongoing discussion and efforts are taking far too long to resolve.

It called upon the Department of Transport, and the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC), which is spearheading investigations into the matter, to make more resources available to deal with the problem.

In addition, more effective policing, along with visible consequences for bad driving, are needed to begin to address the issues.

“Too often metropolitan police officers are targeting motorists for expired licence discs, which, quite frankly, is never going to lead to a reduction of road deaths.

“These officers need to be deployed on the roads, monitoring moving violations, such as reckless and negligent driving.

“It’s not the cure-all, but it’s at least a start, and it needs to start now.”

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