Question NW1727 to the Minister of Transport
30 May 2023 - NW1727
Sithole, Mr KP to ask the Minister of Transport
Whether, with reference to the increase in the number of Easter weekend road fatalities in all provinces except Mpumalanga, North West and the Western Cape, and in view of the fact that out of the 225 fatalities that were recorded 44,4% were pedestrians, there are any programmes in place which her department will adopt to ensure safety intervention efforts to prevent the deaths of innocent pedestrians on our roads which seem to spike during the holidays; if not, why not; if so, what progress has been made in rolling out the 365-day road safety campaign that she referred to on 14 April 2023? NW1970E
Reply:
The department does have a plan to deal with pedestrian fatalities on the roads.
In terms of that plan - which is encapsulated in the 365 days road safety programme, the Road Traffic Management Corporation, as the national lead agency on road safety, and provincial departments of community safety and transport jointly identify high-risk areas for pedestrian safety.
The plan identifies behaviour that puts pedestrians at risk such as jaywalking, drunk walking, distracted walking, scholar safety as well as safe crossing of freeways and visibility.
The national and provincial teams then jointly deploy law enforcement and road safety operations in identified high-risk areas to discourage unsafe road usage by pedestrians.
The law enforcement and the road safety education and communication technical committees – comprised of the RTMC, traffic law enforcement authorities and road safety practitioners from all nine provinces – meet regularly to evaluate performance and decide on further required interventions.
The challenge with pedestrian crashes is that they take place within build-up areas where municipalities have jurisdiction. The mushrooming of informal settlements further exacerbates the situation as shops and transport orgonites generally lie on the opposite side of major freeways requiring pedestrians to cross freeways when it is not safe to do so. The road authorities put up pedestrian over-passes to separate pedestrian traffic from the vehicle traffic, thus creating a safer environment for co-existence.
In implementing the 365-plan road safety (on the ground) activations were implemented, in addition to the school programme activations. Other interventions planned for the year with the private sector include focusing on drunken walking, which is a serious issue during weekends and long weekends.