Road death rate in the WC decreases by 30 percent

Oscar Thomas
04 March 2015

Western Cape MEC of Transport and Public Works Donald Grant says every death on our roads is a tragedy for a family, and we must not fall into the trap of becoming numb to statistics.

MEC Grant was speaking on Tuesday on interventions by the provincial government that yielded record low road deaths during the festive season.

The provincial death rate has decreased by 30 percent.

Grant said pedestrian deaths on our roads are simply far too high and as a proportion they are in excess of 40% of the total numbers of fatalities.

Grant said one can see the trend from a 102 down to 93 down to 86 but over the last two years that has climbed to 87 and 91.

Grant said passenger deaths have reduced quite dramatically from 93 to 89 to 81 to 70 to 54.

Grant said driver deaths are also down from 46 down to 38.

“Motorcycle deaths and pillions are declining” Grant added.

Meanwhile road injuries in the province has cost the provincial economy by 21 billion-Rand, this is more than the provinces health and education budget combined.

During the festive season traffic authorities focused on operations such as excessive speed, driver and vehicle fitness, drunken driving and driver fatigue.

The department says it is ready for the notorious Easter season on the roads. 

Provincial Traffic Chief Kenny Africa said over 22 900 vehicles were stopped as part of our alcohol blitzes where 13 950 drivers were screened for alcohol resulting in 275 arrests being made.

Africa said the highest alcohol reading was 1.8mg per 1000ml which is seven times over the legal limit of 0.24mg per 1000ml.

“1502 manual speed offences were recorder with 14 376 speed offences recorded by camera technology and the 7 286 vehicles were stopped as part of fatigue management campaign with 393 drivers being made to rest before continuing their journey” Africa added.