The number of road deaths so far this December appears about the same as last year, the Department of Transport said in Pretoria on Wednesday.
”This is incredibly disappointing for us,” the department’s chief director of land transportation regulation, Wendy Watson, told reporters. ”The rate appears to be around the same, maybe nominally lower.”
Last year, about 1 200 people were killed on South African roads over the December holiday period.
The department declined to issue any fatality figures on Wednesday for the month so far, saying there have been 90 accidents for which no details are available.
In each of these 90 cases, at least one person was killed, but the final death and injury tolls are not known.
The department would not even issue even preliminary figures, as these could be misleading.
Watson said Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape had the highest number of accidents.
Ninety percent of accidents were preceded by some sort of traffic offence.
”We have had pedestrians killed who were crawling on the road because they were too drunk to stand up, or others simply falling in front of cars,” she said.
Watson expressed disappointment at the lack of seriousness with which South Africans regard road safety. Illegal passing, speeding, drunken driving and driving without seat belts are common offences.
In KwaZulu-Natal alone, 614 people were arrested in law-enforcement operations last weekend — more than 200 of them for being under the influence of alcohol.
Watson said December’s road-fatality figures are comparable to those at any other time of the year. Thirty-four people are killed on South African roads every day, of whom 15 are pedestrians.
Another 140 people are seriously injured or disabled in traffic accidents every day.
Road accidents claim the lives of more than 12 000 people every year in South Africa, and cost the country about R38-billion, Watson said.
This figure is calculated using factors such as the cost of hospitalisation, lost work days, physical damage, rehabilitation costs and permanent disability.
Every life claimed on the roads costs the country about R1-million.
In a statement, the department said the last exodus of holidaymakers out of Gauteng is expected this week, with scores of businesses closing for the holidays.
Traffic volumes are expected to be higher than normal on the N1 north and south, the N3, N4, N6, N9 and the N12 from noon on Wednesday to late — and again from early morning to noon on Thursday.
”After this weekend, we expect traffic volumes to return to normal, with a slight increase on December 24 when some people travel to spend Christmas with their families.” — Sapa