Traffic officials work hard to reduce road carnage
“We dealt with the high number of buses and small vehicles that were returning home from churches from Sunday afternoon till Monday evening," he said.
BURGERSFORT – The Limpopo traffic officials believe that the death toll on the roads will be less this year compared to the Easter holidays of 2014.
Spokesman for the transport department, Mr Kagiso Mootane said on Sunday April 5, 35 deaths had been recirded compared to 42 at the same stage last year.
According to Mootane the province dealt with a massive influx of vehicles en route to Moria over the holidays. About a million pilgrims attended this annual Easter church service.
Mootane said 2 000 traffic officers had been deployed on the major routes, including the R71 between Tzaneen and Moria and the Moria and Polokwane route.
“We dealt with the high number of buses and small vehicles that were returning home from churches from Sunday afternoon till Monday evening,” he said.
According to the traffic officials, the increased traffic volumes posed a number of challenges; an increased number of buses which lead to congestion and delays at toll plazas and border gates; overloading of public passenger transport; pedestrian jaywalking; breaking down of vehicles and trailers; reckless and negligent driving; and drunken driving and excessive speeding.
The department deployed more than 353 marked and 38 unmarked traffic-police and road-safety vehicles were on critical routes.
The visible policing operations focused on moving violations such as reckless and negligent driving. Special focus was placed on the top-five priority routes namely the N1 Mantsole to Musina, R521 Dendron Road, R71 Polokwane/Tzaneen Road, R101 Polokwane/BelaBela and the R36 Tzaneen/Lydenburg Road from April 2 to 7.
The paper had not yet received the exact Easter death toll on Limpopo’s roads before going to print.
