Disputed: Bicycles as deadly as taxis

Cape Town, 08.03.2006. Victims of a taxi crash are attended to on the N2 highway. Traffic was backed up on both sides as one of the passengers was flung over the dividing wall. Picture Rogan Ward.

Cape Town, 08.03.2006. Victims of a taxi crash are attended to on the N2 highway. Traffic was backed up on both sides as one of the passengers was flung over the dividing wall. Picture Rogan Ward.

Published Jan 23, 2012

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“Taxi deaths as frequent as bicycle deaths” trumpeted the headline on a recent media release from the South African Institute of Race Relations.

While we can't help wondering what race relations has to do with the appalling carnage on our roads, it is also true that, no matter what your ethnicity, blood is red and dead is dead.

Is this an attempt to play down the staggering casualty rate among drivers and passengers alike in minibus taxis?

To test the SAIRR statement we referred to the 2009/10 Road Traffic Report (the latest one available) from the Road Traffic Management Corporation.

This is a 104-page document that covers the period from March 31, 2009 to March 31, 2010 with more graphs and statistics than an actuarial textbook.

“Road users are as likely to be killed in bicycle accidents as in minibus taxi accidents,” says the institute.

SAIRR spokesman Kerwin Lebone said each of these scenarios accounted for two percent of road deaths.

The report, however, states that 254 people were killed on bicycles during that period (four of whom were passengers on tandems) while 602 people (drivers and passengers) were killed in minibus taxi accidents.

A total of 13 923 people died on South African roads during 2009/10 (and if that number doesn't make you ashamed to be a South African, it should) so simple arithmetic tells us that cyclists make up 1.8 percent of that total, minibus taxi drivers and passengers 4.3 percent.

That means you are actually more than twice as likely to get killed in a minibus taxi as on a bicycle.

Lebone says that for each road death in a minibus taxi, 21 people were killed in accidents involving cars.

But the official statistics show that 602 people died in crashes involving minibus taxis, while 6729 were killed in car accidents; in other words for each road death in a minibus taxi, 11 people were killed in accidents involving cars.

Car accidents, according to Lebone, accounted for just less than half of road deaths (6729 out of 13 923 or 48 percent; he got that right), light delivery vehicles and bakkies accounted for a fifth (2740, also spot on) and trucks and other unspecified vehicles were involved in almost a tenth of road deaths (1405, actually 10.09 percent).

The report tells us that there were 5 472 090 cars registered in South Africa on March 31 2010, weighed against 282 793 minibus taxis.

602 minibus taxi fatalities equates to 23.8 deaths per 10 000 vehicles; 6729 deaths in car accidents boils down to 12.3 per 10 000 vehicles, about half the rate for minibus taxis.

But what of motorcyclists, who are presumably the road users most at risk?

On March 31 2010 there were 367 162 motorcycles and scooters registered in South Africa; during the period covered by the report 311 people were killed on South African roads in accidents involving powered two-wheelers, including 44 pedestrians who were knocked down by riders.

That equates to 8.5 deaths per 10 000 vehicles, a figure even seasoned bikers find surprising, although the Road Traffic Management Corporation points out that, while bikers have relatively few accidents (most riders cover very low kilometres per year, compared to cars) those crashes usually result in serious or fatal injury to the riders.

But the major point is that bikers almost always ride alone, whereas minibus taxi crashes kill people on a wholesale basis.

According to Lebone, almost a quarter of road deaths occurred between 6pm and 9pm, and 60 percent happened over weekends. These were the times when public transport was least active, he said.

Think about that for a moment: minibus taxis make up only 3.25 percent of the vehicles on South African roads (282 793 out of a total of 8 686 032) and they operate mostly during the relatively safe hours of daylight on weekdays, yet they are responsible for 4.3 percent of the fatalities on our roads.

Lebone also pointed out that 60 percent of drivers killed on the roads during 2009/10 were under the influence of alcohol. That's true, and merely goes to prove that drinking and driving is a deadly combination, no matter what you drive.

But who you are makes no difference to how dead you are. Only a concerted effort from law enforcement - and the political will to regulate the minibus taxi industry - will reduce the casualty rates on our roads.

The SAIRR responds:

The South African Institute of Race Relations is a policy and research organisation that publishes statistics and research on demographics, the economy, business & labour, education, and crime and security, among other topics. It has been doing so for over 40 years.

The name signifies the role that the Institute played in the apartheid era and remains unchanged even though the organisation has now assumed a new role

There was no agenda on the part of the Institute, racial or otherwise, in pointing out these facts.

The Institute does make the reader aware that there are far more cars on the road than minibus taxis. Even so, the average minibus taxi driver covers more kilometres per day than the average car driver.

We agree that more than 600 deaths in which minibus taxis are involved every year is a 'staggering casualty rate'. More so the thousands of road deaths in which cars are involved.

We also agree that an industry that transports 65 percent of public transport commuters is too important to be left to its own devices.

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