Road carnage: Twelve learners were killed when the scholar transport vehicle they were travelling in crashed into a truck in Vanderbijlpark in the
Vaal. Photo: Timothy Bernard / Independent Newspapers
South Africa has many reputations — some earned, some exaggerated, some inherited from a past we pretend we’ve outgrown.
But one reputation remains stubbornly accurate: we are a nation that binges. We binge on long weekends, on public holidays, on sport, on politics, on outrage, on celebration and most destructively, on alcohol. And every festive season, the country pays for this addiction in blood.
The 2025–2026 holiday period claimed 1 400 lives on our roads. That is not a statistic — it is a national indictment.
The next time we offer the familiar “compliments of the season”, it’s worth remembering that the festivities are too often accompanied and complemented by something far darker: a surge in alcohol misuse, drug abuse and gambling addiction that leaves countless families starting the new year in crisis rather than celebration.
Even the once playful post festive mantra, Januworry, has lost its humour — it now reflects a very real and growing crisis of debt, desperation and financial freefall for millions.
Transport Minister Barbara Creecy, visibly shaken by the carnage, has called for a total ban on drink driving, arguing that South Africa’s tolerance for “just one drink” has become a licence for mass death. She is right. The numbers are not merely high — they are catastrophic.
South Africa records 12 000–14 000 road deaths every year, placing us among the worst in the world.
The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) estimates the economic cost at R180–R200 billion annually — roughly 3–4% of GDP. That is money that could have built schools, staffed clinics, repaired water systems or strengthened policing. Instead, it is swallowed by a preventable crisis.
Alcohol is the accelerant. Between 27% and 58% of fatal crashes involve alcohol, depending on the province and season.
The pattern is predictable:
Long distance travel
Little time for stopovers
Night time driving
High pedestrian movement
Weak enforcement
A national drinking culture that treats excess as entertainment – a traditional drink-drive and drugs intake habit
This is not a transport issue. It is a behavioural epidemic.
Every so often, a single event pierces the national numbness. The first day of the school year should have been a moment of hope. Instead, it unfolded as a devastating reminder of how recklessly we treat the lives of our children.
A minibus taxi, overloaded with learners and overtaking multiple vehicles, turned a narrow stretch of road behind the ArcelorMittal steel plant in Vanderbijlpark into a death trap. That road is unforgiving at the best of times — constricted, busy, chaotic during the morning rush.
On Monday, it became a mass casualty scene. The scholar transport taxi collided head-on with a truck while attempting a dangerous overtake. Twelve pupils died. Several others were injured. Some children were still unaccounted for hours later.
Police have opened a culpable homicide case and are investigating overloading, roadworthiness and other contributing factors.
But South Africans know the script too well: investigations, outrage, condolences and then a slow slide back into the same deadly patterns.
For the families, there is no script — only the raw, unfiltered pain of parents whose children left home for school and never returned. No parent should have to identify a small body at a mortuary because a driver gambled with lives to shave minutes off a commute.
This was not an accident. It was the inevitable outcome of a country bingeing on lawlessness, impunity, and a broken transport culture.
South Africa’s pedestrian fatality rate is among the highest on the planet:
Pedestrians account for 40% of all road deaths — nearly double the global average of 23%.
In KwaZulu Natal, Gauteng and the Western Cape, the figure rises to 45–55%.
Most deaths occur at night and on weekends, men and women crossing highways with dark clothing, mirroring the country’s binge drinking rhythms.
Workers walking home, children crossing highways, commuters navigating broken transport systems — these are the people sacrificed to the altar of our intoxication. Even basic safety measures, such as wearing visible clothing at night, are routinely ignored because the broader system has conditioned people to navigate danger rather than expect protection.
South Africa’s current legal limit (0.05g/100ml) is meaningless without enforcement. A zero tolerance law is not radical — it is rational. Countries that adopted such laws — Brazil, Russia, Czech Republic — saw 10–30% drops in alcohol related crashes.
The World Health Organization classifies South Africa’s drinking patterns as “hazardous,” with binge drinking rates among the highest globally. This is not a moral failing; it is a public health emergency.
South Africa’s road fatality rate stands at 22–27 deaths per 100 000 people. Compare that to:
Global average: 16
Brazil: 14
India: 15
China: 7
UK: 2.6
Australia: 4.1
Japan: 3.6
We are not lagging — we are losing.
Alcohol is not the only addiction shaping South African behaviour. Gambling has become a silent national obsession. Millions of gogos (grandmothers) on State grants are wagering small bets in the hope of stretching household budgets. Teenagers and young adults are using their parents’ ID numbers to gamble online.
In 2024-25 alone, South Africans spent R7 billion on alcohol and booster beverages over the festive public holidays — and billions more on casinos, online betting, horse racing and Premier League football and horseracing.
This is not a coincidence. It is a symptom of a society seeking escape — from poverty, from stress, from hopelessness — through substances and habits that ultimately deepen the crisis.
Road safety is not simply a behavioural issue. It is a governance issue — a failure of planning, enforcement, regulation and political will.
Where are the traffic officers during peak hours?
Why are unroadworthy vehicles allowed to operate? Why do scholar transport operators face so little scrutiny? Why are dangerous roads not redesigned?
Why do municipalities fail to maintain signage, markings and lighting? Why do provinces tolerate taxi associations that operate outside the law and with sheer impunity?
South Africa does not lack road safety policies. It lacks implementation. It lacks consequences. It lacks a culture of accountability.
But the deeper crisis is cultural. We have normalised recklessness. We have normalised shortcuts. We have normalised drinking as a national pastime. We have normalised risk. And we have normalised death.
How many more South Africans must die before we admit that our drinking culture is killing us? Not metaphorically. Not symbolically. Literally.
We cannot keep blaming taxis, potholes, or “the other driver.” The truth is simpler and more uncomfortable: South Africa is a binge country and our roads are the frontline of that addiction.
Until we confront the culture — not just the crashes — we will continue to bury thousands every year, yes, toast, cheers and clink wine glasses in after-death parties, shaking our heads, posting condolences on social media platforms and waiting for the next long weekend to repeat this deadly cycle – only the long Easter weekend will shock the nation, again.
The Vanderbijlpark tragedy should be a turning point, 12 learners perished. It should force us to ask: how many more children must die before we act?
How many more families must bury their futures? How many more mornings must begin with sirens, wreckage and grief?
South Africa cannot continue bingeing on lawlessness and road rages. We cannot continue accepting preventable deaths as the cost of living here. We cannot continue looking away.
Our roads are a national emergency. They require national intervention.
The lives of our children — and the future of this country — depend on it.
The Hidden Cost of Celebration: South Africans pour an estimated R150 billion a year into alcohol — a habit that averages R414 million a day, until the final week of December when spending rockets to over R1 billion per day.
Economists warn that the country pays far more than the purchase price: alcohol-related harm drains 10–12% of GDP through hospital beds, police callouts, road carnage and social service interventions.
Gambling tells a parallel tale. The National Gambling Board records billions in annual turnover across casinos, betting, bingo and limited payout machines, though it publishes no festive season specific figures.
Still, the pattern is familiar. December’s exuberance often gives way to “Januworry”, when empty wallets push many toward gambling in the hope of clawing back holiday overspending — a gamble that too often deepens the financial hole.
Marlan Padayachee, formerly a political, diplomatic and foreign correspondent, is a freelance journalist, photographer and researcher