Statement by Donald Grant, Minister of Transport and Public Works
This past Easter weekend, like other busy holiday periods, brought with it high traffic volumes of people travelling in and out of the province to their various destinations, increasing the risk of collisions and serious injuries on the roads.
This year, we launched the Operation “ZERO” Easter Enforcement Plan, a campaign aimed at achieving zero fatalities or serious injuries on identified high-risk routes over the Easter period. The plan was evidence-driven, and had identified hotspots that have seen some of the more serious crashes over the past Easter periods.
Interventions and resources were directed strategically to these areas to increase enforcement visibility and to target the errant behaviour that causes fatal crashes, namely excessive alcohol consumption, driving while fatigued, and excessive speeding. These hotspot areas were:
On those identified hotspots, three deaths (as indicated above) were recorded which is a marked improvement on the number of deaths experienced on these roads during Easter in the past. We are grateful not to have had a major crash during this past Easter weekend. The number of deaths over this Easter period has also decreased slightly from the number for the same period last year, with 23 lives being lost on our roads. Of those, there were 10 pedestrians, 8 passengers, and 5 drivers.
Date of incident | Time period | Number of Fatalities, per type | Total number of fatalities for period |
2015/04/03 | 00:00 – 24:00 |
|
8 |
2015/04/04 | 00:00 – 24:00 |
|
4 |
2015/04/05 | 00:00 – 24:00 |
|
7 |
2015/04/06 | 00:00 – 24:00 |
|
4 |
Total | 23 |
Comparative Easter weekend figures below:
Year | Easter Weekend |
2009 | 21 |
2010 | 28 |
2011 | 7 |
2012 | 20 |
2013 | 15 |
2014 | 27 |
2015 | 23 |
During this past Easter weekend, since we launched Operation “ZERO” last Thursday at the Huguenot Plaza, a total of 24 036 vehicles were stopped and checked at the various roadblocks:
Our efforts, focussed on both driver and vehicle fitness as well as compliance, are continuing to yield positive results, with more and more lives being saved on our roads.
Of serious concern, however, is the high number of pedestrians that are being knocked down across the province. This class of fatality will require further attention and focussed intervention moving forward.
I should like to thank all of our road safety partners, the citizens of this province, and the men and women in blue for their dedicated service over this past weekend. We must continue to work together to ensure the safety of all road users on our provincial roads, to ensure that they all get Safely Home. It is important for all road users to begin to identify themselves with the many that make responsible decisions on our roads, and value their lives as well as the lives of others. The burden of ensuring safety on our roads falls upon us all equally.
Siphesihle Dube
Spokesperson for Minister of Transport and Public Works, Donald Grant
Tel: 021 483 8954
Cell: 084 233 3811
E-mail: siphesihle.dube@westerncape.gov.za