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Approximately 70,000 vehicles were on the N3 between Durban and Gauteng at peak travel time on Thursday and Friday as the Easter weekend rolled in.
A further 50,000 were recorded on the N1 to Limpopo, said Simon Zwane, spokesperson for the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RMTC).
After last year’s quiet Easter Weekend amid lockdown Level Five, the figures are reminiscent of a pre-Covid Easter weekend.
“We planned for the week to be busy. We knew that there were no [stringent] restrictions – people could travel provincially,” Zwane said. “We would have to wait for all the numbers to come in before we can say for sure – but it seems to be as busy as it once was.”
In an average year, 1.35 million people die on the world’s roads and another 50 million are seriously injured. Most (93%) of the deaths happen in low- and middle-income countries, and sub-Saharan Africa is the global hotspot in the road death pandemic. In South Africa 26 out of every 100,000 people die on the roads – far higher than the global average of 18 per 100,000.
My PhD research into bioethical aspects of minibus taxi crashes in Johannesburg pointed to some reasons for this. It also revealed certain strengths in the South African road safety landscape.
Zutobi.com, a driver education online platform in high income countries, recently ranked South Africa 56th out of 56 countries in a survey titled, “The world’s safest and most dangerous roads.” The next lowest-ranked countries were Thailand and the USA, while Norway ranked first (closely followed by Japan and Sweden). The results of this survey have received a lot of media attention.
Picture: Nigel Sibanda
South Africa might have won in getting drunk drivers off the roads by closing bottle stores over the Easter lockdown weekend, but permitting on-site consumption of alcohol could have led to super-spreader events, with its impact to be seen in more than a week’s time. In attempting to limit the potential spread of Covid-19 during the Easter holidays, President Cyril Ramaphosa again banned the sale of alcohol but for off-site consumption. Taverns, pubs and restaurants could continue to serve alcohol until the imposed curfew of midnight. But it seemed some did not adhere to restrictions. In Soweto, a police operation.