Statistics on the Easter road fatalities may‚ when the final numbers are in‚ be the highest Easter death toll to date‚ the Automobile Association (AA) said on Friday.
The organisation was responding to the statistics released by Transport Minister Joe Maswanganyi on Friday morning.
The AA said the driving public and the government should “take serious stock of what these numbers mean”.
Last Easter’s preliminary figures indicated 156 deaths but after the 30-day waiting period to calculate the final numbers the fatalities rose to 245 - a 57% increase.
This Easter’s preliminary figures show 235 deaths – 51% more than the 2016 figures for the same period.
Last Easter’s preliminary figures indicated 156 deaths but after the 30-day waiting period to calculate the final numbers the fatalities rose to 245 - a 57% increase.
“If the same applies this year‚ the final figure may be as high as 370 fatalities‚” the AA said.
This year’s stats for the period April 13 to 17 show that half of those who died were passengers and pedestrians accounted for just under 25% of the fatalities. Most provinces recorded an increase in deaths‚ but the Free State’s number of deaths dropped by 27%.
The AA said: “Not enough is being done to stop the carnage on our roads.”
More effective policing is needed to begin to address the issues‚ the organisation said. “Too often metropolitan police officers are targeting motorists for expired licence discs‚ which‚ quite frankly‚ is never going to lead to a reduction of road deaths. These officers need to be deployed on the roads‚ monitoring moving violations‚ such as reckless and negligent driving.
The festive season’s road deaths will‚ once again‚ be high unless a plan is formulated and implemented now by the transport department‚ the RTMC‚ provincial traffic authorities and nongovernmental organisations‚ the AA said.
The problems of people buying driving licences and of fraudulent roadworthy certificates being issued was mentioned at Friday’s briefing on the death statistics. The AA said the Department of Transport‚ and the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) needed to make more resources available to deal with the problem
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