Easter weekend road statistics

Media Release by Bonginkosi Madikizela, Western Cape Minister of Transport and Public Works

This past Easter long weekend has seen a huge reduction in the number of road deaths compared to the previous year’s. This reduction has been expected following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement of a Nation-wide Lockdown in South Africa as part of the effort to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

In response to the pandemic, contingency  measures and protocols had to be put in place to address the regulations as published in terms of Section 27(2) of the Disaster Management Act, 2002  and all subsequent changes to the regulations. Traffic Services were  clustered under emergency personnel of security services as an essential service and as a secondary law enforcement partner to the South African Police Services.

As an initial step , a directive was sent to all Traffic Chiefs and operational staff on the 15th March 2020, to immediately suspend all breath alcohol screening of drivers while conducting drinking and driving interventions.

The weighing of vehicles was also suspended for the duration of Lockdown. However, our weighbridge sites were earmarked to be utilised as 24/7 Vehicle Check Points and are accessible to all role-players when needed on short notice to conduct checks and searches of heavy and other motor vehicles to determine consignment loads and the legitimacy of movement.

As part of planned joint interventions to achieve our objectives, we are providing resources at six (6) fixed Cross Border and seventeen (17) secondary Vehicle Check Points (VCPs) which are located at strategic points. We are also deploying normal patrol duties to monitor driver behaviour to ensure compliance.

All 6 Average Speed Over Distance sites were  used to do our traffic volume counts for the period 09th – 13th April 2020. A total of 13 867 vehicles were  counted of which 792 were  public transport vehicles on all our major routes.               

R61 Beaufort West – Aberdeen Route

As part of our planning in anticipation of  a possible increase in traffic volumes over this period, we activated additional K78 roadblocks from the 09th April from 18h00 – 06h00 to 14th April 2020 at the N1 Tunnel Paarl, Rawsonville weighbridge in Worcester, Matjiesfontein Laingsburg and on the R61 Beaufort West.

The R61 Aberdeen route from Beaufort West to the Eastern Cape border received much  attention because of the fake news that was circulated on social media platforms, reporting 1000s of public transport vehicles using this road. The Average Speed Over Distance camera network which covers the complete route including the secondary routes recorded a total vehicle volume count of 888 motor vehicles, of which 420 were public transport vehicles as set out  below. 

Consolidated Information and Statistics: Covid Period 26 March – 13 April

Since the start of the Lockdown period we have counted a total of 76 478 motor vehicles using our road network of which 2982 were public transport vehicles.

Overall Fatalities – 27 March to 13 April 2020

• Municipality – 5 Pedestrians – 2 Drivers
• Provincial roads – 1 Driver – 8 Passengers

One of our main objectives was to ensure that road users comply with Disaster Management regulations, including but not limited to controlling the movement of road users on the province’s major road network, including those road users who provide all frontline and essential services.

Disaster Management Act Arrest and Charges

Since the start of the Lockdown operations, we have been keeping record of all arrest and charges relating to the enforcement of the regulations.  We could not follow our normal procedure of using our handheld devices, and all the statistics had to be manually recorded and consolidated. All the arrests and charges that are  recorded below have  been verified. A total of 303 arrests were executed and 540 fines have  been issued.

During this period there was no daily statistical reporting from Traffic Centre’s, and all due processes linked to workday and shift activities were logged via the handheld devices. Daily feedback is drawn remotely from eNFORCE.

We will continue to contribute to achieving our objectives for the duration of the Lockdown period and will proactively prepare  for the shutting down of secondary routes to manage the movement of road users should this prove necessary.

I would like to thank all our frontline service staff, our traffic officers for putting their lives on the line by enforcing the law during such difficult times.

I urge all the people of the Western Cape to respect the lockdown regulations. Please stay at home in order to stop the spread of COVID-19.