The Minister of transport and Deputy Minister joined by the MECs of Transport and Community Safety from all nine Provinces.
The Minister outline major focus areas for this year’s campaign including the strategic deployment of law enforcement officers as well as awareness initiatives to support the campaign.
The minister outlines the vision underlying the review of the road safety strategy.
The theme for this year’s campaign is, “Every day without a Road Death – South Africa 2024”.
“We must be brutally honest about the fact that we have a lot of work to do to make our roads safer and to reduce road facilities in South Africa,” said Minister of Transport Barbara Creecy at the N1 Highway in Carousel on Sunday.
Creecy was launching the Festive Season Road Safety Campaign whose theme this year is:
“Every day without a Road Death- South Africa 2024.”
She said road crashes have a negative impact on the country’s economy and more importantly, they have a devastating impact on families and communities.
“According to the RTMC’s State of the Road Safety Report for the period 1 January to 31 December 2023, South Africa has had 10 180 fatal crashes which resulted in 11 8883 deaths and among these fatalities 5 360 of them were pedestrians,” she said.
Creecy said the provinces where pedestrians were most at risk of dying on the roads last year were Gauteng with 1412 casualties, KwaZulu Natal with 1 200 casualties and the Western Cape with 757 casualties.
She revealed that 21,3% of road deaths in 2023 involved hit-and-run incidents, adding that alcohol and over-speeding are usually the biggest contributors of road deaths.
Gauteng Provincial Roads and Transport MEC Kedibone Diale-Tlabela said all stakeholders in the road safety campaign must talk to individuals and seek a working partnership with people who own places of entertainment, because one of the critical issues is that people drink at these outlets and then get into their vehicles and drive,” said the MEC.
She also pointed out that churches and even households must be approached regarding road safety awareness during this festive season.
As Gauteng was one of the provinces that are usually highly affected by road deaths, Diale-Tlabela expressed gratitude that the 2023 national festive season road safety campaign has been launched in the province.
“The South African National Taxi Council is committed to road safety and in 2010 we launched the Hlokomela Campaign which has proved to be a success ever since,” said Bafana Magagula, Santaco’s chief strategic manager and champion of Hlokomela Campaign.
He admitted that prior to 2010 taxis were contributing up to 40% of fatalities countrywide during festive seasons, but now the “contribution” is under 10 %.
But Magagula stressed that this is not good at all and SANTACO recently joined hands with Transnet to educate scholar transporters about what to do when crossing railway lines, this as there has been lots of fatalities involving children who were being transported by scholar drivers.
“We would also like to work closely with traffic officers and SAPS and our slogan is road safety all the way,” he said.
City of Tshwane MMC for Roads and Transport Tlangi Mogale said the following:
“As we know that during this time of the year, we experience road fatalities and as the City of Tshwane we have already launched our road safety campaign a month ago and we have consulted the TMPD to make sure that even if it is just by an inch, we must contribute to reducing fatalities on our roads.”
Automobile Association representative Eleanor Mavimbela said her company has been part of South Africa’s road landscape for over 95 years now and during all these years AA has always advocated road safety.
“It is only through collaboration and sheer commitment that we can significantly reduce the number of fatalities on our roads,” she said, adding that physical and mental fatigue also contributed to lapses of concentration and poor judgment on the road, thus leading to fatal accidents.
National Taxi Alliance Deputy President Rodger Molobela said his organisation supports the 2024 road safety campaign wholeheartedly and that it is good that transport authorities keep on reminding taxi operators about road safety as they transport 75% of all road users in the country.
“We preach the same gospel to all our members, namely that they must obey and work together with law enforcement authorities and make sure that all passengers arrive home safely,” said Molobela.
He announced that NTA will also launch its own road safety campaign known as Indhlela Nhle on 13 December 2024 at the very same N1 Highway in Carousel to corroborate the efforts of all government transport authorities.
“I’m so happy to see the officials and law enforcement on the road working hard and I wish it can be every day,” said taxi operator Eddie Matshabela.
“It about time law enforcement be on the road like this 24\7 to safeguard and making sure that motorist obey the rules of the road at all times and to end accident on the road,” said Freddha Matjeke.