Department of Community Safety releases festive period’s accident report
Recently released statistics show that road users were safer on the roads during the festive season as compared to the previous year, but that fatalities were still exceptionally high.
In a recent media statement, the Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Community Safety, Sizakele Nkosi-Malobane, released the preliminary statistics regarding roadside accidents during the 2018 festive season.
During the period from 1 December to 8 January in Gauteng, the report claims that fatalities had decreased by 19 per cent over the same period in 2017.
There were a total of 208 road accidents recorded in Gauteng, resulting in 219 deaths. Nationwide accidents totalled 1 286 and fatalities amounted to 1 612.
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Pedestrian fatalities have also shown a decrease of two per cent from 37 per cent of 2017, and cyclist deaths remained at two per cent.
Sizakele accredits the decrease in incidents to an increase in road safety strategies as implemented by government and road safety organisations.
“Our road safety efforts and practices continue to bear desirable results as depicted by the festive season report,” said the MEC, but “we acknowledge that more work still needs to be done to reduce the fatalities to acceptable levels.”
The report further said that drunk driving and excessive speeding were found to be the highest contributing factors to road accidents during the festive period.
Other factors include fatigue, dangerous overtaking of vehicles, passenger overloading and non-roadworthy vehicles being driven.
The MEC also noted that he will be looking into Boksburg and Johannesburg testing stations in the coming months, as these cities account for most of these recorded accidents.
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