Transport Minister Sbu Ndebele says his department will pull out all the stops - including cancelling motorists' licences - to bring down the high number of road deaths.
Speaking at the announcement of the 2011-2012 festive season road traffic statistics yesterday, Ndebele welcomed the 5% decrease in road deaths from last year's 1551 (out of 1221 fatal crashes) to this year's preliminary total of 1475 out of 1230 crashes as "encouraging".
But the previous year's final road carnage figures had risen to 1704 by January 10 2011.
Ndebele said the figures were totally unacceptable and that the campaign to ensure road safety would be intensified.
He cited drivers' attitude, fatigue, speeding, drunk-driving and reckless driving as some of major contributory factors to the carnage.
More than 3500 public transport and freight drivers were arrested during the pre-festive season clean-up between September and November 2011.
From October 2010 to October 2011, more than 15million vehicles and drivers were checked and six million traffic fines issued. About 21575 drunk drivers were arrested.
An additional 1.5 million vehicles and drivers were checked between December 1 2011 and January 8, resulting in 500000 fines being issued and 13 439 drivers arrested.
Ndebele warned that drivers arrested for serious offences would have their licences suspended.
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