Festive season road deaths
Festive season road deaths show current approach to road safety ineffective - AA
Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula on Tuesday revealed a 14% increase in the festive season road death toll compared to the previous year.
The deaths were recorded over a period of 42 days - from December to January - and the death toll is 14% higher than the 2020 holiday period.
A minibus collided with an SUV near the Mookgophong off-ramp on Tuesday.
Officials said that the fully loaded taxi traveling towards Gqeberha collided with another taxi in the opposite lane.
A bakkie collided with a truck near Kroondal Plaza in the early hours of Monday morning.
Details around the crash remain unclear but Eyewitness News understands that a delegation from the provincial government is on its way to the Malatjie household to gather more information.
Paramedics found the wrecked car after 6am on Friday morning on the N3.
It's understood that the car they were travelling in collided with a truck between Worcester and Robertson on Thursday afternoon.
Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula on Wednesday said 822 people have lost their lives so far.
Eight hundred and twenty-two people have died on the country's roads since the beginning of the festive season, just 3.1% lower than the previous year.
On 22 January 2021, Minister of Transport Fikile Mbalula released the statistics for road fatalities over the festive season, reporting there had been a decline in deaths compared to previous years.
As the holidays end and people return to work, road blocks have been set up on the province’s major routes, with no major incidents reported yet.
The RTMC’s Makhosini Msibi said that this festive season had so far seen more deaths of people in private vehicles than any other mode of transport.
The minister and officials from the Road Traffic Management Corporation addressed the media on the festive season road safety.
Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula released the 2019/20 festive season road safety report on Thursday.
The majority of those killed over the period were pedestrians.
Mid-term statistics show that 589 people have been killed and over 1,300 arrested for drunk driving since the start of the festive season.
Almost 600 people have lost their lives already since the start of the festive season - last year that number stood at 839 on 23 December.
Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula said that authorities had recorded 489 fatal crashes since the start of the holiday period and this resulted in 589 fatalities.