Question NW417 to the Minister of Transport

Reply:

(a) What was the road safety strategy during the 2015/16 festive season

The objectives of the 2015 National Road Traffic Safety Festive Season Plan was to:

• Ensure high levels of visible traffic law enforcement on all major routes on a 24 hour 7 days basis;
• Maximize the impact of education and law enforcement operations by heightening the level of seamless operations;
• Sensitize road users about their road safety responsibility through communication and shock therapy techniques;
• Increse the presence of law enforcement officers on our roads through the deployment of high a level support team to the provinces;
• Provide on time auxiliary services to the deployed forces through the National Road Traffic Joint Operations Centre; and
• Deploy undercover anti-corruption officers to ensure ethical conduct by officers and road users.

The focus of the strategy was on the following areas -:

• Impaired Driving – Alcohol, Drug abuse, Fatigue
• Dangerous Driving - Excessive Speed, Dangerous Overtaking, All moving violations
• Occupants Safety - Front and Rear seatbelts, Child Restraints
• Public Transport - Passenger Transport, Freight Transport
• Vulnerable Road Users - Visibility, Drinking and Walking, Jay walking, Distracted Walking
• Vehicle Fitness - Road Blocks
• Road Traffic Information - Verified data

(b) (i) The targets are informed by the goals set out in United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety which commits the country to reduce road crashes and fatalities by 50% from 2010 to 2020.

(ii) the processes included a comparison undertaken with previous year’s data, in terms of the reduction of road crashes and fatalities. Other traffic information included vehicle population, traffic volumes as well as the human population in the analysis.

(iii) To measure the success of the strategy, data is collated during the festive period. This information is analyzed to identify new trends and causes of crashes. A report is then produced with all the factors that contribute to fatalities over the period

(c) What was the outcome in each case?

A closer look at the road crashes and fatalities over the 2015/16 festive season depicted the following trends.

• Small motor vehicles accounted for 47.9% of total crashes during this season, followed by light delivery vehicles at 22.7%, minibuses or combis at 10.1% and trucks contributed 4.8%.
• The majority of people who died were passengers at 38.3%, followed by pedestrians at 34.9%. Drivers contributed 23.9% of the fatalities and cyclists 2.8%.
• The age group with the highest percentage fatalities in the categories: drivers, passengers and pedestrians is 25 to 39 years, accounting for about 47,9% drivers fatalities, 38.5% passengers fatalities and 34,3% pedestrians fatalities respectively. Children aged from 0 – 4 contributed 10.4% of pedestrian deaths.
• The gender mostly affected, was males with a contribution of 74.4% to total fatalities. Females represent 25.2% of the fatalities. Very disturbingly, of this number 81.4% is apportioned to Blacks while the rest represents Coloured, Whites, and Asians.
• The gender of 0.4% of the deceased was undetermined because they were burned beyond recognition.
• Most crashes occurred on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
• The highest number of fatal crashes was recorded on Saturday at 22.2% of the total fatal crashes, followed by Friday and Sunday with 18.8% and 16.9% respectively.
• A new phenomenon was observed in the 2015/16 festive period where 51.4% crashes occurred between 14H00 and 23H00. This stark contrast to the norm might be attributed to the relentless and resilient implementation of the 24/7 law enforcement.

Key factors that contributed the most to the fatalities were jay-walking, speed that was too high for circumstances, overtaking in the face of oncoming traffic, hit and run accidents, driving under the influence of alcohol, tyre bursts, faulty brakes, and smooth tyres. Sharp bends, wet surfaces and poor visibility also played a significant role in the contributing factors.