Transport minister: Pedestrian deaths remain a concern!

PEDESTRIAN deaths remain a major concern.

South Africa witnessed 1 502 deaths resulting from 1 234 fatalities during the 2024/25 festive season. Pedestrian deaths made up 41% of all road fatalities.

Minister of Transport Barbara Creecy announced the 2024/25 festive season statistics in Tshwane on Monday, 20 January.

She said the number of fatalities represents a year-on-year increase of 5,3% compared to the 2023/24 festive season, with a 4,2% increase in the number of crashes.

"If you want people to change, you have to be consistent," she said.

The minister said the launch of the festive season campaign on 1 December 2024, was aimed at changing road user behaviour, enhance law enforcement actions and working together with everyone involved to reduce crashes and fatalities.

She said law enforcement officers issued 711 184 fines for various traffic offences:

"To clamp down on drunken driving, speeding and other moving violations, our officers arrested more than 9 550 motorists, with 3 840 individuals arrested for drunken driving, 414 drivers were arrested for driving at high speed and five among them were driving at excessive speeds of between 200km/h to well above 240km/h," she said.

Creecy said the highest speedster was arrested in Gauteng driving at 245km/h in a BMW sedan on N1 near Honeydew on 18 December 2024.

The five provinces that recorded increases in the number of fatalities in the 2024/25 festive season compared to 2023/24 are KZN, Eastern Cape, Free State, Limpopo, Northern Cape and North West.

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However, Gauteng had the highest pedestrian fatalities at 63,84%, followed by the Western Cape with 53,9% and KZN with 44,33%.

"Our message is clear to pedestrians, if you want to stay alive while on the roads, don't consume alcohol then walk on roads. Ensure that you're visible at night and walk in areas that are well-lit, avoid jaywalking and cross the road at a pedestrian crossing or where it's safe to do so," she said.

Creecy said preliminary statistics are deeply disturbing.

"To be precise, 87% of crashes happened because of human behaviour, including hit-and-runs, jaywalking, fatigue, loss of control over vehicles, speed, drunken driving and reckless overtaking," she said.

The provincial statistics are:

Donald Selamolela, chairman of the Transport Portfolio Committee, said: "We can't negotiate anymore. We've been pleading that South Africans please abide by the law and don't drink and drive. We're no longer going to do that. We have to toughen our laws. We can't continue to lose lives to drunk drivers."

Gauteng MEC for Roads and Transport Kedibone Diale-Tlabela said: "We're trying to work hard with municipalities to make sure we fix our road network."