The Automobile Association (AA) has proposed that an annual roadworthiness check be done on the vehicles to ensure they are in good condition.
The AA made this proposal after transport minister Barbara Creecy announced the preliminary 2024/25 festive season road-death statistics on Monday.
At least 1,502 people have died in 1,234 fatal crashes since December 1. Creecy said the number of fatalities represents a year-on-year increase of 5.3% (70) compared with the 2023/24 festive season, with a 4.2% (50) increase in the number of crashes.
The AA said while the state's efforts had been on correcting driver behaviour, focus should also be given on eliminating aspects which could also decrease accidents on the roads, such as the condition of the vehicles.
“Roadworthiness checks are only conducted when vehicle ownership changes hands,” AA CEO Bobby Ramagwede said.
He said if a person kept a vehicle for over 10 years, for example, the only check would have been conducted when the owner took ownership of it.
“We propose we make it compulsory that all vehicles should undergo an annual roadworthy test when vehicle licences are renewed,” Ramagwede said.
These tests should ensure that vehicles are fit for purpose and that the workings of the vehicle are in order, such as brakes, he said.
“We have seen a number of accidents where trucks had been ploughing into vehicles on the national roads.”
Consequence management
In dealing with bad driver behaviour such as driving at high speeds and driving under the influence, Ramagwede said authorities had to ensure consequence management.
He said some motorists often got away by bribing traffic officers.
Ramagwede said the presence of traffic officers on a stretch of freeway was often sufficient to reduce speed in that area.
If traffic officers had calculated that a motorist had exceeded a speed limit, he said they should go to the offending motorist's home, as police do when there is a domestic violence case, and arrest the offender.
“Once that level of infringement prosecution takes place, we will reduce bad behaviour. There is very limited consequence management.”
Paramedics' perspectives
With an increased traffic volume during the festive season, Rowan Scandroglio, 42, a paramedic in Durban, hardly rests when he starts his shift. This is due to increased accidents on the roads in and around the city — a phenomenon he attributed to driver behaviour, drinking under the influence of alcohol and the general hive of activities over December.
Scandroglio recalled during the festive season he attended to a taxi accident where multiple patients were seriously injured. “As you get on scene, there are more people lying on the ground, scattered on the road, and being the first paramedic there you now have to decide which patient to treat first,” he said.
Scandroglio, from ALS Paramedics, said as he treated one patient, other patients behind him were screaming for him to help them.
It becomes very busy. We don't even get a chance to eat our lunch. You eat behind a steering wheel. We don't rest
— Martin Chidi, Limpopo paramedic
He said taxi accidents leaving innocent passengers seriously injured was a frequent occurrence in the Durban area.
He said Durban was a popular holiday destination whose traffic volume could at times swell by 50% because of an influx of tourists. “With the increased traffic volume, you find people are still driving recklessly and driving suspiciously under the influence of alcohol and other substances which decreases their driving ability.
“During the festive season the workload increases and doubles the number of [calls], whereas on a normal day you get time to rest between calls.”
At their station, paramedics often share jokes, laugh and talk to each other between calls, he said. “That's basically like a de-stressing mechanism, and they talk to each other about cases and what they are experiencing.”
Another paramedic, Martin Chidi, 48, works under the Greater Tubatse local municipality in the Sekhukhune area of Limpopo. While he didn't attend to serious road crashes, he said December was the busiest time of the year. He attended to a lot of accidents, most of them minor.
He said it was very busy on the roads over the festive season, whereby one couldn't drive at high speeds.
“It was a bumper-to-bumper situation. There was a high influx of vehicles on the roads.
“I witnessed reckless driving, drinking and driving and overspending. They were ... racing and the majority of them are new drivers. Most of the vehicles have a learner sign at the back,” he said
On some days it was so busy they couldn't clean the inside of their ambulances as they received call after call, he said. Sometimes when they were still attending to a patient on the scene, there would be other calls. “Maybe two or three outstanding calls, and you try to speed up so that you can finish up, transport the patient to the hospital and rush to another call.
“It becomes very busy. We don't even get a chance to eat our lunch. You eat behind a steering wheel. We don't rest.”
Behavioural change
Creecy said to clamp down on drunken driving, speeding and other moving violations, officers arrested more than 9,550 motorists, with 3,840 individuals arrested for drunken driving.
A total of 414 drivers were arrested for speeding — five of them at more than 200km/h.
“All the more disturbing is the fact that most crashes and deaths are a result of human factors,” she said.
“To be precise, 87% of crashes happened because of human behaviour, including hit-and-runs, jaywalking, fatigue, loss of control over vehicles, speed, drunken driving and reckless overtaking.
“I want to say this loud and clear: we, South Africans, must change our behaviour on the roads.”
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