The Automobile Association of South Africa (AA) has described an encouraging the decrease in the number of road deaths this past festive season. However, however the associations says its concerned about the rise in the number of pedestrian fatalities.
AA was reacting to the festive season road fatalities statistics that Transport minister Joe Maswanganyi released in Pretoria on Monday.
According to statistics road deaths in the festive season went down by 11 per cent from 1 714 the previous year to 1 676 fatalities in 2017/2018 festive season period.
AA spokesperson Layton Beard says the increase in the number of pedestrians dying on the roads is worrying.
“So this really is encouraging. I think there are two points that we would like to from this. The first is there has been an increase in the number of pedestrians deaths and that’s absolutely worrying to us. We are involved with pedestrian training for school children and we know that there is a big problems in terms of pedestrian deaths and we know that they make up the bulk of the fatalities on our roads. Not only during the festive periods but annually as well. So that is very concerning and I think that that is something that does require a lot more attention.”
Earlier, Transport Minister, Joe Maswanganyi, says the measures that the department employed during the past festive season have yielded positive results.
“Our preliminary festive season fatalities for the period starting December 1st 2017 to January 9th 2018 show that there were 1-thousand five hundred and twenty seven people who died on the roads in that period compared to 1 714 fatalities in the same period the previous year. When considering the entire holiday period from December the 1st 2017 to January 15 2018 there were 1 676 fatalities.”
Meanwhile, the department says trucks contributed just one percent of road fatalities during the period. Road Traffic Management Corporation Chief Executive Officer, Mkhosini Msibi, outlines the vehicle types that contributed to fatalities on the road.
“The largest contribution it’s your private motor vehicles. They have contributed 49% of the entire value chain and when you ge to the LDVs, the LDVs we have an increase. They have contributed 21% in relation to our fatalities and we you call the minibuses or the combis have contributed 9%.”
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