Africa-Press – South-Africa. As holidaymakers return home from the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, the coastal provinces are hopeful that early indicators could point to a decrease in road fatalities.
KwaZulu-Natal Transport Community Safety and Liaison MEC Sipho Hlomuka said preliminary reports suggested that there had been fewer road fatalities than expected during the festive season.
“The province had set a target of a 10% reduction and the indications currently are that we are at a 13% reduction. The situation is currently being monitored as most holidaymakers are making their way back,” he said.
Last year during this period, the province recorded 275 fatalities.
Over the past few days, there have been high volumes of traffic on the province’s roads, especially on the N2 and N3.
Hlomuka said that more than 88 500 vehicles had been stopped during the festive season.
He said:
Based on weekly reports released by the Western Cape transport department, at least 97 people died on the province’s roads between 5 December 2022 and 2 January 2023.
Spokesperson Jandré Bakker said a simple aggregation of weekly fatality figures would differ from the final results issued at the end of the festive season.
This is because the Western Cape subscribes to a 30-day rule, meaning that a fatality is added to the statistics if someone dies up to 30 days after the road-related incident.
Pedestrians are the road users most likely to be killed on the roads. They make up more than half of all road-related fatalities.
Bakker said the department “remains cautiously optimistic as this year’s figures are still lower than last year’s comparative period, despite high traffic volumes”.
There were more than 207 fatalities during the previous festive season.
Eastern Cape transport department spokesperson Unathi Binqose said the province was still collating data on road fatalities.
“We’ve crossed the three-figure mark. It was always going to be a challenge to beat figures from last year, given the restrictions that were in place then, compared to the out and out Covid-free restrictions for this year. It seems we are not faring any better than last year,” he said.
News24 had not been able to reach the Northern Cape transport department at the time of publication.
Lwaphesheya Khoza, the spokesperson for Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula, said the department would release the statistics in the coming weeks. She added that holidaymakers were expected to be travelling home until Sunday because inland schools open on Wednesday.
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