Reckless drivers‚ rain and long weekends to blame for festive road toll‚ says Peters

Reckless speedsters‚ drunken drivers and pedestrians crossing busy roads are just some of the reasons for the carnage on South Africa's roads over the festive season‚ with 1714 fatalities recorded between December 1 2016 and January 9 2017.

Minister of transport Dipuo Peters said on Wednesday that driver and passenger attitudes were to blame for the high number of fatalities on the roads‚ as well as the fact that there were two back-to back-long weekends and a lot of rainy days.

"The challenge we are facing is that people just don’t want to change their attitudes on the roads‚" she said.

"Stop trying to impress your friends… The culture of the driver alerting the passenger that their seatbelt is not on is not there‚" Peters said.

"Our boy children grow up without role models because our men are in the wrong place; either in graves or in prison‚" she said.

Peters said South Africans need to treat drinking and driving as a "menace‚ as a sickness" in society.

The minister said earlier that there were various measures in place to address the high number of fatalities‚ as well as the more than 400 000 fines that were issued for offences ranging from speeding‚ drunken driving‚ reckless and negligent driving‚ to vehicles not being roadworthy and licencing documents being outdated or falsified.

Peters said the implementation of the points demerit system would be be a further incentive for drivers to obey the rules of the road.

Further‚ the minister said the department would ask the department of justice for drunken driving offences to be changed from a schedule-three offence to a schedule-five offence‚ which would in the long run‚ hopefully‚ change driver behaviour.

The Automobile Association (AA) said the high number of cars stopped and fines issued seemed over the festive period should be standard procedure and not limited to special times of the year.

It described the fatality figures as horrific. "They are indicative of a lack of mutual respect amongst motorists for their own‚ and other drivers’ lives.

"While this situation needs to change‚ and change quickly‚ it is also incumbent upon the authorities to not only talk about saving lives‚ but put in place proper‚ implementable strategies to deal with this‚" the AA said in a statement.

- TMG Digital/The Times