Johannesburg -
Transport Minister Dipuo Peters has warned that while road accidents during the festive season dropped 2.5 percent this year, the continued carnage puts strain on the fiscus with the government losing billions of rand every year.
Peters told journalists at Parliament on Friday, during a briefing on the release of the statistics for the festive season, that fewer people were killed on the road this year than last year.
She said most of the victims of road accidents from December 1 to January 5 were young people either as drivers, passengers or pedestrians.
While there were 1 376 fatalities last year, the figure dropped to 1 368 this year. This represents a 0.6 percent drop.
Peters said despite this decline on the road deaths she was deeply concerned about the continued spate of accidents in the country.
She said road accidents paint a gloomy picture for the year ahead.
“It impacts negatively on our economy, placing an unbearable strain on our social budgetary allocations, thereby unreasonably increasing social dependency on government,” said Peters.
The state loses R40bn every year in road fatalities and crashes.
The Road Accident Fund (RAF) has for years been struggling to pay some of the compensation owing to road accident victims.
The fund was at one point in the red for R50bn. This has been the case for several years as it struggled to settle large volumes of claims.
Recently the government decided to cap compensation at R100 000.
Peters, who was flanked by provincial MECs during the briefing, said a new resolve was needed to curtail road fatalities.
The issue of road safety remained a constant pain in government’s agenda to change the situation on South Africa’s roads.
Peters said the financial strain on the fiscus cut across the country.
This was confirmed by provincial safety and transport MECs who said their budgets were stretched to the limit.
Free State transport MEC Butana Komphela said the RAF was not sustainable with the rising costs of the accidents.
He said the road crashes and fatalities also affected government departments, including the health and social development departments.
Road Traffic Management Corporation chief executive, Makhosini Msibi said out of 1 368 deaths on the roads most were in KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and the Eastern Cape.
In KwaZulu-Natal 282 people died on the road during the festive season while in Gauteng 212 people were killed.
In the Eastern Cape road crashes left 198 people dead with 174 in Limpopo, 135 in Mpumalanga, 113 in the Free State, 108 in the Western Cape, 102 in North West and 44 in the Northern Cape.
- Saturday Star