Cape Town – It was a bloody start to the festive season, with a staggering 767 people killed in just 18 days on South African roads.
With traffic volumes expected to increase dramatically from today as millions travel home or to holiday destinations, the road safety fraternity said it was “greatly concerned” as road deaths had increased by 16% compared to the same period last year.
The annual mid-festive season preliminary road-safety report released yesterday by Transport Minister Blade Nzimande, accompanied by board members of the Road Traffic Management Corporation in Pretoria, showed that KwaZulu-Natal had recorded the most deaths with 162, followed by Gauteng with 125 people killed.
Limpopo and Eastern Cape had 89 deaths each, while Mpumalanga had 82, the Western Cape 81, Free State 78, North West 57 and Northern Cape 24.
The report only looked at statistics involving road users from December 1 to 18.
It showed that road deaths had increased in all provinces except Gauteng.
“This is a very challenging and agonising period where young people are losing their lives on the roads.
“The most prevalent violations that caused crashes included excessive speeding, reckless and negligent driving which includes increased (incidents of) drinking and driving (and) blatant disregard of road rules,” Nzimande said.
A combination of fatigue and unroadworthy vehicles had become lethal, particularly on long-distance road trips, Nzimande added.
Pedestrian movement had also increased on freeways and roads in semi-urban, urban and built-up areas.
“My attention has today been brought to the suspension and disciplinary charges brought against a driver of one of the Intercape buses who was overtaking on a barrier line. This driver was exposed through a video clip taken by one of the passengers in the bus.
“We continue to urge passengers to be vigilant, especially about reckless driving exhibited by drivers on our roads, and report it,” Nzimande said.
It’s believed the coach was travelling from Cape Town to Durban.
A total number of 34 minibus vehicles and 44 trucks have been involved in deadly collisions since the start of the festive season.
The road-safety report also revealed that most incidents occurred between 7pm-8pm and 10pm-11pm. Most incidents occurred on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays.
10666 fines were issued for driving without driving licences and 9620 fines for drivers who did not fasten their seatbelts.
Over 5800 fines were issued for those driving vehicles with worn tyres and 3039 for the overloading of goods.
To clamp down on drunk drivers, speeding and other road violations, officers arrested about 2837 motorists. Of the arrests, 1109 were for drunk driving.
The transport fraternity said consultations were under way to introduce a second driver protocol in the taxi industry to reduce the number of deaths caused by taxi operator fatigue.
Ndzimande said the national Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) roll-out would track down all reckless drivers and remove them from the road network.
Automobile Association spokesperson Layton Beard said she was very concerned with the high road death numbers.
“We support the minister’s call for tighter legislation to curb the recorded increase of fatalities on our roads. Those who are caught driving under the influence of alcohol will be arrested and charged on the spot, as there will be no waiting for test results,” he added.
Meanwhile, provincial traffic chief Kenny Africa said authorities were adopting a “no-nonsense” approach this festive season and yesterday two minibus taxi drivers had been arrested for reckless and negligent driving.