Every festive season, South Africans travel the length and breadth of the country to enjoy some time off.

Sadly, after this past festive season, 1 612 people never returned home.

Yup, 1 612 people is the updated road death toll between December 1, 2018, and January 8 of this year, which is a 5,6% increase from the same period last year.

Those stats were released during the preliminary Festive Season Road Safety report, delivered on Wednesday by Transport Minister Dr Blade Nzimande.

Via IOL, here’s more from that report:

KwaZulu-Natal recorded the most fatalities, at 328, followed by the Eastern Cape (238), Gauteng (219), Limpopo (178), Mpumalanga (162), Free State (159), Western Cape (149), North West (125) and Northern Cape (54)…

Passengers accounted for 36 percent of road fatalities nationwide, followed by pedestrians (35 percent), drivers (27 percent) and cyclists (2 percent)…

Nzimande blamed behaviours such as drinking and driving, recklessness and negligence (including unsafe overtaking), distraction, fatigue, unroadworthy vehicles and stray animals.

That article finishes with a pretty damning indictment of our situation:

Yet as far as we are concerned, unless there is a significant change in the general attitude of motorists, South Africa’s roads will remain among the most dangerous in the world for many years to come.

Is that an overreaction? Well, compare our stats with those of Australia, for example, and you get a better idea.

Yes, Australia has a population estimated at around 25 million, whereas South Africa is around the 57 million mark.

Yes, our stats are from December 1 to January 8, whereas Australia’s facts are just for the month of December.

Even with that in mind, let’s look at their stats, released on the Australian government’s website:

December 2018 : At a glance

• There was a total of 100 road deaths during the month of December 2018. The current figure is 6.4 per cent lower than the average for December over the previous five years.
• During the 12 months ended December 2018, there were 1,146 road deaths. This is a decrease of 6.4 per cent from the 12-month period ending December 2017.

Australia has significantly fewer deaths per year than South Africa had in a five-week stretch this festive season.

They had 100 deaths during December, we had 1 612 during a five-week stretch.

Their stats show a spike in December, but nothing quite like ours:

When you look at it like that, our road death toll really hits home.

We had a proper moan about some of the proposed road rule changes earlier this week (with good reason), but it’s clear that something needs to be done, and soon, to get to the bottom of this deadly mess.

Cue the usual handwringing and lip service. EWN reports:

Transport officials will be meeting with the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) to discuss urgent interventions to reduce the high fatality rate on the country’s roads…

The department says it will be carrying out sting operations at fraudulent testing stations to reduce corruption and to ensure only roadworthy vehicles are on the road.

Nzimande says several other measures will be implemented.

“The first intervention is the implementation of the Aarto [Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences] Act and the demerit point system.

“We are going to be reclassifying serious offences to schedule 5 and this includes a mandatory minimum sentence for drunk driving and inconsiderate and negligent driving.”

We’ve heard it all before, but consider this another warning.

Stay safe behind the wheel.

[sources:iol&govau&ewn]