Festive season road deaths turn debatable

DA Shadow Minister of Transport Ian Ollis announced on Thursday 9 January that the party will be calling for a special parliamentary investigation and debate on the high death toll on South Africa’s roads.

“The investigation and debate should result in the recommendation of programmes that will reduce the unnecessary loss of lives on our roads, as well as a review of the manner in which these deaths are reported by the Department of Transport,” says Ollis.

The festive season road death toll figures released by the Minister of Transport, Dipuo Peters indicated that, at a preliminary estimation, 1 376 people lost their lives on South Africa’s roads between December 1, 2013 and 7 January, 2014.

“Families around South Africa have lost mothers, fathers, daughters and sons in unnecessary road traffic accidents that could have been avoided.”

According to Ollis in order to stem the tide, a major shift is needed to drastically reduce the number of lives lost on South African roads.

“The announcement of the preliminary festive season road deaths figures today, was four days early. This means that the figures did not take into account the following weekend – where families would be driving from holidays to get back home in time for the new school term – one of the busiest weekends of the festive season,” he says.

“This is dishonest.”

“Furthermore, the Department of Transport uses South African Police Services (SAPS) reports to measure road deaths in the country, and not data from forensic mortuaries across the country.”

“This lends itself to under-reporting. The Medical Research Council of SA and experts have warned against the under-reporting that results due to reliance only on SAPS reports.”

“The bottom line is that precious lives have been lost on our roads this festive season and Minister Peters has a responsibility to report on the matter fairly. She has not done so,” he concludes.