New Cellphone Technology Helps Pinpoint Accident Sites | Western Cape Government

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New Cellphone Technology Helps Pinpoint Accident Sites

20 November 2006

Attending the Cellphone-GPS Pilot Project Launch, standing (from the left) are: Jakkie van Heerden, HoD Thami Manyathi, Thabo Tsholetsane, Cielie Karow, Vernon Petersen and Sharon Stokes.

Approximately 100 000 accidents occur in the Western Cape Province per annum - on average 273 accidents per day, which result in a financial burden of more that R2.3 billion per year. However, these monetary costs cannot be compared to the misery of the victims and their relatives and friends in terms of pain, grief and distress.

The reasons for these horrendous statistics are numerous and require a dedicated, well-planned and well-managed effort to combat them. Currently, a culture exists on the province's roads whereby poor driver attitude and a general disregard for road traffic legislation and the wellbeing of other road users contribute to a high risk environment.

To obtain statistics on these accidents the SAPS, Metro, Municipal and Provincial traffic officials record this information for all crashes on Accident Report forms. Fatal crashes are also reported on the Arrive Alive Quick Response form within 12 hours.

However, problems are experienced with the allocation of the exact locations of these accidents. There are no standardised route codes throughout South Africa. The roads engineers are using their own set of codes and traffic law enforcement and SAPS sometimes use names of locations that do not even appear on any map.

To overcome this problem, research has been done to introduce the use of regular cellphones to obtain the GPS coordinates on a crash scene, in order to determine the exact location of the crash. It is important to have reliable data in order to identify problems and obtain an informative evaluation of any particular treatment.

Road traffic deaths and injuries are a hidden epidemic - it remains almost invisible to society at large. It is tragic to those involved, but not newsworthy enough. Furthermore, the cost of accidents is staggering and accidents cause extra congestion on our roads.

The truth is that, in the RSA, we kill about 1 road user every 40 minutes and seriously injure another 6 per hour - at a cost of R104 million per day!

Media Enquiries: 

Enquiries:
Chris Prins
Manager: Communication
Department of Transport and Public Works
Tel: 021 483 2132
Email: cwprins@pgwc.gov.za