Transport minister Sibusiso Ndebele is to ask the cabinet to reduce the national speed limit from 120km/h to 100km/h.
Ndebele said on Tuesday, after visiting an accident scene on the N2, between Empangeni and Mtubatuba, where 10 people were killed in a crash involving a minibus taxi: "There are increasing calls and signs that something drastic needs to be done to arrest the current situation.
"Studies conducted in other countries such as Australia where the speed limit is 110 km/h indicate that a reduction in speed limit can save lives."
Ndebele said 126 people had been killed in the past two months in accidents involving public transport, but did not mention that public transport vehicles such as buses and minibus taxis in South Africa already had a legislated speed limit of 100km/h.
"This unnecessary loss of lives on a daily basis calls for a serious review of the current status quo. We cannot afford to have the situation continue like this," he said.
However, the Justice Project SA countered that speed was rarely the root cause of collisions. JPSA chairman Howard Dembovsky said a head-on crash was devastating even when two vehicles were both travelling at only 60km/h.
"Head on collisions, of which there have been many in the past two months, almost always result from one or more drivers committing one or more moving violations prior to the collision occurring," he said.
Dembovsky said the transport department and the Road Traffic Management Corporation had repeatedly said crashes were almost always caused by people violating road laws, but that enforcement authorities insisted on focusing on speed prosecution.
"It has also been revealed that somewhere in the order of 45 percent of all people who die on our roads annually are under the influence of alcohol."
Dembovsky said Ndebele had to stop comparing South Africa to countries such as Australia, as they had highly professional and effective law enforcement agencies.
"So what if the minister gets his ill thought-out scheme of reducing the current general speed limit; all this will mean is that even more cameras will explode onto the scene to earn traffic authorities more revenue," he said.
"If speed enforcement does not revert to stopping speedsters at the time of their infringement, then reducing the speed limit will have absolutely no effect on the incidence of speeding." - Sapa