More than 1,400 people killed on SA's road over festive season

JOHANNESBURG - More than 1,400 people lost their lives on the country's roads this past festive season.

Despite this number, Transport Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga highlighted that this was a significant decline in fatalities from the previous year.

Chikunga briefed the media on the latest road traffic statistics on Wednesday, revealing a 1.7% drop compared to the previous year.

She said most provinces, with the exception of Gauteng, the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, contributed to the decrease.

"During the previous festive season, we had recorded 1,212 fatal crashes and then people who died, we recorded 1,427 and last year we had actually recorded 1,452 and that therefore gives us a decrease of 1.7%."

STATE OF ROADS NOT TO BLAME

The Transport Department denied claims that the poor state of the country's roads was a leading cause for road fatalities.

Chikunga said provinces were working to improve the quality of roads to avoid a blame game moving forward.

Chikunga, instead, attributed the fatalities on drunk driving.

The minister said it was impossible for over 1,000 deaths in less than 42 days to be blamed on roads.

"Many of these crashes that we are talking about are not even as a result of the potholes, they are not; it’s because of this abuse of alcohol, where the majority of South Africans are just drunk, everybody."